


Humble Distraction

by hanaellena



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: All-Knowing Deaton, Angst, Brotherly Love, Canon-Typical Violence, Derek is Derek, F/M, Hurt Stiles, I didn't even mean for any of this to happen, Lucid Dreaming, Poor Everyone, Poor Stiles, Possible Character Death, Romance, Scott is a Good Friend, Stiles gets hurt a lot I'm sorry, Stydia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-01-16 08:34:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 29,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1338910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanaellena/pseuds/hanaellena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Not you too” her voice was almost a whisper as she cried, hoarse and hurting from its previous endeavor. “You don’t get to do this Stiles, not you. Not now”<br/>The group have to defeat the Nogitsune while mourning the death of their friend. Lydia realises how much she cares for Stiles knowing he might be next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Stiles” his name came as a sob from her lips. “Stiles, wake up. You have to wake up”

She took his head firmly in her hands and shook him ever so slightly. His eyes were closed, as if sleeping, or dreaming. She almost didn’t want to wake him. Maybe he was somewhere peaceful and kind, away from all the death and agony and grief. But she couldn’t feel him breathing as she pressed her head against his chest, searching for any kind of comfort. Any kind of life.

“Not you too” her voice was almost a whisper as she cried, hoarse and hurting from its previous endeavour. “You don’t get to do this Stiles, not you. Not now”  
When she shook him harder, a breath finally came to his lips. But it wasn’t really a breath. It was a huge inhale of pain and fear and exhaustion, as if he’d just woken up from the worst nightmare imaginable. Lydia jumped at his outburst and she felt her hands begin to tremble frenetically.

“Stiles” she said as tears fell freely down the pale skin of her cheeks. “Stiles look at me”

His eyelids fluttered as his vision became more focused and he obeyed, feebly looking up at the weeping girl before him. Lydia was too overcome with grief to notice the dark circles, almost bruises beneath his eyes, or the sickly complexion enhancing his gaunt features.

Stiles breathing quickly settled, but a second later he was hunching in on himself in pain.

“Ouch” he exclaimed, although ouch was obviously an understatement. His voice sounded like gravel, weak beyond belief.

“You’re okay. You’re okay” Lydia was speaking to assure herself more than anything. Only two minutes ago she’d experienced the worst thing in the world. She’d felt every bit of it. The death of her friend. Her best friend. Felt her own bones tremble. Ice run through her veins. Her heart rip apart. She wasn’t about to feel that again. Especially not for Stiles.

Grasping his hand in her own, she gasped at how cold it felt. His skin was ice to her touch.

“Stiles, you’re so cold. Why are you so cold?”

Stiles held onto her tight, as if clinging on to a tether to reality.

“I’m okay Lydia. I’m okay. You said it yourself. Don’t worry”

Then his face changed as he took in Lydia’s appearance. The still flowing tears. The distraught expression. Lydia could feel the impending breakdown shining through her features as clear as day.

“Lydia, what’s wrong? What happened?”

He instantly sat up despite the obvious pain it caused him. Lydia felt her whole body go numb. She didn’t know what to say. She wanted it to be a mistake. A huge stupid mistake. And as she looked at the fragile boy in front of her she wondered how she could do this to him. He was already so faint. So vulnerable. Probably blaming himself for every other god awful thing that had happened so far. As agonizing thoughts and shivers rattled her body she felt Stiles’ grip tighten further.

“Lydia, tell me” his voice became stern, pleading and terrified all at the same time. She looked at him and took a deep hitching breath, holding onto him for dear life.

“Allison” she said, and the name broke her heart in two. “I felt it Stiles. I felt it and I screamed. I couldn’t stop it. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know. I can’t...”

Lydia trailed off as Stiles’ entire demeanour seemed to slump. As he collapsed back against the concrete wall, Lydia saw something break behind his eyes. His whole body became that of a corpse, unmoving and lifeless.

“No no no” she said cupping his face with her hands once more. “I’m the one that should be turning off right now. You don’t get to shut down on me. You have to get out of here. I have to get you out of here. I need you right now Stiles. I need you”

“It’s my fault” Stiles eyes glazed over. A single tear rolled down his left cheek. “Allison’s dead because of me”

“Stop it” a force came out in Lydia’s voice that she didn’t know she was capable of. “You don’t get to do that either. You’re not blaming yourself for this. Not now. Not ever. Now get up. I don’t know what’s wrong with you but I’m gonna fix it okay? There’s no way I’m losing you too”

Lydia thanked the heavens that Stiles responded to her now. There must’ve been something about her tone of voice that motivated him. As she helped him to his feet the way he looked at her made her want to cry her eyes out and kiss him and never see him again all at once. Because she saw how he hurt. She saw how much he was in love with her. And she saw Alison’s death written all over him, etched into his features like a permanent branding. She was sure he could see it all over her too.

“Where does it hurt?” she asked as he winced and stumbled slightly. She tried her best to keep him standing and stable as they staggered down the endless hallway. However, Stiles remained utterly silent, minus the occasional outburst of breathy discomfort that he tried so hard to disguise. It pained Lydia to see him so selfless. She knew he felt unworthy of comfort. Unworthy of interaction even. Perhaps he was thinking of Scott. Or Isaac. She could tell he was already adding their pain to his own, collecting it all up until eventually it would ruin him. But in some sick and twisted way that didn’t matter, because Alison was dead. Dead. The word terrified her because it seemed so final. It made the anguish of this broken boy in her arms seem miniscule and irrelevant. But at the same time it was absolutely everything. Stiles was soon to be dead too according to the Nogitsune. And that scared her more than anything else in the world. The fear, the unremitting overwhelming fear of losing him served as a distraction from the hell she really wanted to feel. And maybe that was selfish. But she didn’t care. Right now, Stiles was her beautiful, humble, dying distraction. And now it was her turn to save him, whatever the consequences.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I decided to carry this on as kind of a prediction for the season finale. It's so damn sad. Here's a lil' bit of brother interaction between Scott and Stiles because their relationship is probably my favourite thing on the show. Stydia is still there because duh. It's quick because my attention span is shorter than a vine video, and the cliff hanger woah. But anyways, let me know if you think I should carry this on and turn it into a bigger thing rather than just one shots. I am making it up as I go along though, so god knows what will happen. I love anyone who takes the time to read this pile of rubbish. You are amazing.  
> Ps. I will reply to comments as soon as I can as I'm not allowed yet because I haven't had an account for long enough :(

Stiles woke with a start, wondering where the pain had gone. And then Scott was there, crouched down beside where he lay on the couch and everything flooded back. Lydia carrying his fractured body for what seemed like hours. The dappled glow of moonlight through the barred windows on the doors, behind which lay everything he didn’t want to see. And then her body, motionless, hanging limp in the desperate grasp of his best friend, the boy that he knew would never stop loving her. Never. And he would do anything just to go back to sleep and shut it all out. Bask in the peace of a pain free non-existence.

He glanced down and saw Scott’s hand upon his own, black tendrils of hurt seeping from his skin and trailing along his best friends forearm.

“Stop”

He pulled his hand from Scott’s grasp and the ache re-entered, harrowing, agonizing, reminding him that this was all so real.

“Let me help you” Scott sounded different. Stiles couldn’t define it, but he guessed it had something to do with watching his first love die in his arms. He pulled his hand towards his chest when Scott reached out to grab it again.

“Scott, stop. I told you. No more hurting because of me”

His brother’s face was almost emotionless, but just beneath the skin Stiles could see the anger, the grief, the tiredness all taking their toll.

“No one’s hurting because of you Stiles” said Scott, obviously frustrated by his stubbornness. “They’re hurting because of the Nogitsune. So please let me help you”

Stiles propped himself up against the arm of the chair. With the movement he felt pain across his stomach and he did everything he could to keep it from showing on his face. It felt like there was some sort of wound there, one that was yet to completely heal.

“I don’t need help” he said, adamant in his guilt.

“Stiles, I’m not a freaking idiot” Scott’s voice wavered a little, his grief surfacing the tiniest amount. “You’re being one right now though. I can smell it. You’re in pain. Do you have any idea how bad you look?”

Stiles let out a sigh. Maybe he _was_ being an idiot. Maybe Scott needed this. Maybe he needed a distraction. He couldn’t save Allison, so he would save Stiles instead, like the freaking hero he’d always been. The strong one. The one that was always saving people. The one that didn’t get possessed by a god damn demon fox spirit and go round murdering all his friends.

Knowing it would make him feel mildly better, Stiles offered Scott his hand reluctantly who took it without hesitation. Immediately the intricate black veins reappeared, winding along Scott’s fingers and sinking into his skin. The physical pain was instantly lesser, but any other form remained obstinate and immovable clawing his chest and stomach hollow. He didn’t really know what to think. The faces of Isaac, Lydia, Argent kept playing out in his mind like an unravelling spool of faulty film. And then there was Allison. The girl none of them would ever see again. And the hollowness seemed to expand and consume him. The sound of Lydia’s scream breaking through his unconscious state returned to him like a punch to the gut. It was a scream of death itself. And he couldn’t believe he had done that to her. He’d done that to the girl he was supposed to love. He was supposed to have saved her. He was supposed to have been her knight, not her burden.

At that moment the figure in his thoughts materialised as she rushed in. Lydia’s now makeup free face was carved with horror as she clutched a phone in her hand, shaking. Stiles straightened himself as Scott quickly spun around, alerted by the scent of fear and panic.

“I can hear it” she said in a frightened whisper. “I can hear it. They’re screaming. There’s so many of them. They won’t stop. He's at the hospital, I know it. He's hurting people. Scott, we have to do something"

It felt like the air had been sucked out of the room when Stiles and Scott both registered what had been said. He felt Scott's hand tighten to an almost painful extent around his own as claws protruded from his friend's finger tips. He knew why. Melissa. Scott's mum. She was at the hospital. And so was Stiles' dad. Stiles took back possession of his hand and shot up from the couch ignoring the dizziness that swept in as he did so. Scott stood up with him. They both knew what the other was thinking, what the other was _feeling_. It looked like it was time to sacrifice themselves again. It was almost funny that Stiles had thought he might have five minutes to settle and recover. _Recover._  He didn't know if that was even possible. Not now.

His eyes met Scott's and they shared the same fearful, determined look of understanding.No more loved ones were going to die today. No more loved ones were going to die at all.

It was then that Lydia screamed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your responses! This hurts to write because I'm still grieving myself. There will be more action in the next chapter I promise. I'm just soooo busy with coursework so it's difficult to think of a real plot as I have no idea how the finale is going to go. So this one is basically just more Stydia, but Derek is great too. I adore how his character has developed and how he really cares about everyone now. Please let me know what you think and if you want me to carry on!:))) ...Oh yeah if you've noticed any of my dodgy spelling it's because I'm British, sorry about that.

All three of them were now racing through Scott’s hallway, Stiles more stumbling. Lydia was behind him reaching out her arms every time his body threatened to fall. He needed to be resting, she thought. He should be sleeping, for hours and hours, for days even, getting better. They all knew he wasn’t. It was obvious. His deterioration was almost enough to make her order him to stay. Tell him that they would take care of it all. Everything would be okay. But what right did she have. He didn’t belong to her. Not really. And the Sheriff wasn’t her father.

Scott swung open the front door to reveal the dim light of evening. Lydia saw shock appear on Stiles’ face when he realised the sheer length of time he’d been unconscious. It was already nearing the end of the next day. More than twelve hours had passed since it had happened. They’d already talked Scott’s dad out of keeping them at the police station, which wasn’t easy. But despite what seemed otherwise, the man still had a heart. There’d been no sarcasm this time. No winding their way out. Just sadness. Plain and simple sadness. And even Agent Mcall wasn’t going to force them to relive it. That was when Sheriff Stilinski had told them he was going to the hospital. Something about talking to Melissa. At the time it all seemed like minor details. But now, as her phone buzzed in her hand with the anguish of so many people, it just seemed so real. So present. And all she wanted was for it to stop.

The trio tumbled out onto Scott’s drive and were stopped in their tracks by the almost menacing figure of Derek. His face was even more intense than usual, obviously having heard the news. Deaton was there too, looking solemn, sympathetic.

“What are you doing?” It was Derek that spoke.

Scott didn’t seem shocked to see them. He told them everything without hesitation. The hospital. Parents. Oni. Nogitsune. The scream. Stiles and Lydia stayed silent. Though she saw him sway and quickly latched her arm around him, bearing his weight as best she could. She felt his body quake.

The action didn’t go unnoticed by Deaton who stepped forward, maintaining the same sombre expression, though his tone of voice was stern.

“What are you expecting to do, Scott?” he said, glancing suspiciously at the boy in Lydia’s arms. “Rush in there, claws out, with no idea what you’re up against? One of you is unmistakably sick. Has it not occurred to you that you could be playing right into his hands?”

“Of course it has” again, Derek spoke and all three teenagers looked at him in surprise. “That’s no reason not to go though”

The man stepped forward and placed a hand firmly on Scott’s shoulder.

“We’ll come with you” he said assured and definite. “We’re going to get there. And then we’re going to get them out. Alive. I promise”

With the last couple of words he looked at Stiles, the real Stiles. And Lydia could tell he was precarious. The last time Derek had seen him, he’d been the opposite of himself. Wrong. _Evil_. But she could see Derek’s instant reassurance at the sight of guilt and fear and hurt written all over him. It pained him, but at least he didn't have to fear him. Stiles and Scott both nodded, though Lydia could tell their confidence in the idea was dwindling. Hers definitely was. But that was something she had to push aside, for Scott, for Stiles, and for her own sense of sanity. They were going to be okay. They were going to be okay. _They were going to be okay_. The words began to sound strange in her head. Sort of alien. She kept saying them anyway.

She kept hold of Stiles as they went over to his jeep. Deaton made his way to his own vehicle, knowing that there was no point in arguing. Derek and Scott got in the front with Scott in the drivers’ seat while Lydia helped Stiles into the back, following quickly after him. They all knew that Stiles was nowhere near fit enough to drive. And for some reason Lydia felt she had to stay with him. She had to care for him. It took one fleeting look and somehow Stiles understood completely, which meant he didn’t resist in the slightest. Once they were seated she leant against him and wrapped her arm around his, entwining their fingers tightly. She felt like if she let go even for one second she would lose him. And with that she would lose herself. They were both about to fall into a great abyss of darkness, yet it was Stiles’ hand that was keeping her from tumbling over the edge.

She sensed the engine start. Then movement. And as the voices all around her raged on, she felt like they were driving straight to hell.

Along the journey, Derek turned his head to look back at Stiles, whose eyes were intense with anticipation, but half closed with fatigue. He looked seriously concerned, which surprised Lydia, only because she’d never really imagined the brooding Derek fearing for sarcastic, irritating, pain in the backside Stiles. She guessed she could relate. It appeared they only seemed to realise how much they truly cared about something, how much they really _needed_ something when they ran the risk of losing it. How stupid, she thought. And she too looked at Stiles full of worry. She could tell Stiles knew they were staring at him and was choosing to ignore them. He still felt unworthy and it frustrated her beyond belief. So Lydia lifted her free hand and ran it gently over his hair and onto his shoulder so that she could get a better grip on what felt like her life float in a never ending ocean. Despite his remorse obviously telling him to do otherwise, Stiles leaned into her touch instantly, as if her hand was taking the pain away, just like Scott’s would. And maybe in some strange and unexplainable way, it really was.

Seven minutes later, they arrived at their destination. And the voices in Lydia’s head were louder than ever.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a lot longer and not as well written because I was in a huge rush to fit everything in. There's not so much Stiles/Lydia in this one but I hope you still enjoy it!

The hospital was a war zone. People were flooding out as if it was on fire, visitors and patients alike. The atmosphere was ominous and terrifying. Stiles began to wonder if he really wanted to know what was happening inside. Derek had already texted the twins though whether they would actually turn up or not was debatable. Isaac on the other hand was already on his way. It crossed Stiles’ mind how unfair this all was. It seemed never ending. When would his friends ever get to just sit down and rest?

Scott and Derek exited the jeep with what seemed like one swift movement whilst Deaton got out from where he’d parked parallel to them. The emissary looked positively frightened. It didn’t suit him, not one bit. It took Stiles a little longer, and he should have been embarrassed when he needed Lydia’s help, but right now he couldn’t care less. His pride has disappeared the second Void had inhabited what was meant to be his. The second his own mind didn’t belong to him anymore. And then there was the pain, the pain that still remained all over his body like a constant unhindered throbbing, and for that he allowed himself the support. Coming from Lydia, he nearly let it feel acceptable.

Screams were all around. People were injured. Children were crying. The rest of the Beacon Hills police department, what was left of them anyway, appeared to have already turned up, though that wasn’t wholly surprising.

“I guess you were right.” Said Stiles to the tiny banshee, whose arm wrapped tightly around his torso made the cold slightly more bearable. Lydia gazed up at him, apprehension in her eyes.

“I didn’t want to be.” She said. And with that the five of them entered the building, anything but prepared for the chaos that awaited them.

\-----

Inside, papers were strewn amongst people, people that could have been injured or dead. It was impossible to tell amongst the noise. There was an alarm ringing. The sound soaked the air and pounded through their heads like an incessant drumming, though the cause of all the chaos was nowhere to be seen. Stiles couldn’t tell if his heart was in his stomach or if his stomach was in his throat. It felt like both. The sight of blood, some innocent person’s blood, made his insides twist and he wanted to be sick. Or maybe have a panic attack. The thought of his father only made it worse.

“I’ve gotta find my dad.” his own voice sounded so foreign all of a sudden.

Scott glanced at him as they walked, meticulously searching the hallway with their eyes.

“I know.” He said without pause. “It’ll be quicker if we split up. Stiles, you should go with Derek and Deaton so you have protection. Lydia can come with me to find my mom.”

Stiles knew it was logical, considering he could barely walk on his own accord, but he still hated how pathetic it made him feel, to need protecting, to be so damn useless. Even though he knew how ineffectual it was, he really wished he’d brought his bat.

Lydia was reluctant to let go of him, and he wasn’t sure quite how to respond. He was averse to leaving her too. She was human, nearly. And it was funny how the death of these people suddenly seemed so much more plausible. He glanced down at her perfect ivory skin, her delicate velvet hair; as if it was the last time he would ever see it. And maybe it was.

“I’ll see you soon” he said as they broke apart, putting all the strength and confidence into his voice that he could muster.

“I know” she replied simply, returning his gaze.

Scott looked at him now, serious and sedate.

“Be careful, okay?”

Stiles nodded.

“You too”

He saw Scott catch eyes with Derek then. No words were spoken, but he could tell exactly what was being mutely conveyed. _Find his dad_ , he was saying with all the authority of a true alpha. _Don’t let Stiles do anything stupid_. And then his friend was gone, dragging Lydia away with him down a separate corridor. Stiles felt oddly abandoned as he watched his two best friends take off without him. The feeling didn’t last long though as he, Derek and Deaton quickly began on their own mission. A mission that was going to be successful. It had to be.

\------

The twisting feeling in Lydia’s stomach was getting worse. The feeling of dread, except it was more than that. It was a feeling she’d felt too many times before, usually right before she landed upon the next dead body.

And then the world came to a halt.

They saw her body lying not twenty feet ahead and the feeling of trepidation intensified tenfold. She was wearing her pale blue scrubs, her head of dark curly hair a strewn mess and her petite frame was lying completely and utterly still. Lydia’s heart felt as if it had stopped. The air turned to acid. The ground swooped beneath her feet. _No_ , she thought. _No no no_.

Scott appeared to go full throttle into a panicked frenzy and ran full speed towards the body. He fell to his knees before it and then stopped moving entirely.

Lydia didn’t even want to go near. But she did. And the relief came heavy with a mass of guilt. The woman’s skin was soft and pale. She was much younger than Scott’s mother, perhaps in her early twenties. She wasn’t Melissa. But she was still a person. And she was still dead.

Tears were now trailing down Scott’s cheeks and all he could do was stare, unable to move.

“I thought...” it was all he could manage to say before he had to choke back a sob. As Lydia reached out her hand to place on Scott’s shoulder, not knowing what else she could do, somehow above the sound of the alarm they heard an elevator arriving at the end of the corridor. Or at least Scott did, for his head snapped up and Lydia quickly followed his gaze.

The elevator doors opened to reveal Agent Mcall crouching over an injured yet still completely wonderfully alive Melissa. She knew it was Melissa. If she couldn’t see it, she could feel it. And the relief was almost overwhelming. She and Scott ran to them leaving the lookalike where she lay in the middle of the corridor. It felt wrong and disrespectful, but those sort of feelings were a petty thing right now.

When they arrived at the elevator they were greeted with a look of disbelief from Scott’s father.

“What the hell are you two doing here?” he exclaimed. Scott didn’t answer as his attention went straight to his mother, whose leg was bleeding badly. The blood was soaking through the impromptu bandage that Agent Mcall had obviously made in a panic. When Scott crouched down to examine the situation, Lydia thought she had never seen so much concern on a person.

“Mom, are you okay? What happened?”

Melissa’s face was covered in pain and her speech came in short breathy gasps.

“Those things.” She said. “The Oni. They’re here. I guess I didn’t run fast enough.”

Scott’s hands rolled into fists against his thighs. Lydia felt a similar tenseness overcome her. The thought of the Oni made her think of death. It made her think of Allison.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Agent Mcall’s voice was full of frustration and confusion. “But would someone like to tell me what the hell is going on?”

“I’ll explain later” said Scott with little care for the man in his voice. “Right now we need to get you both out. Can you walk?”

Melissa shook her head as perspiration shone across her forehead. Lydia noticed that her skin was turning an awful sickly colour.

“All right then. I’ll carry you.”

Scott reached out to put his arms around Melissa when Agent Mcall stopped him abruptly.

“Let me.” He said with undeniable obstinacy. Scott didn’t argue. He let the man slip his arms beneath her and cradle her tightly. Lydia guessed it was because they still didn’t know what lay ahead. If a fight broke out it would be wholly impractical for Scott to be burdened with his own mother.

Suddenly the werewolf stood up. His head turned upwards and a look of hard concentration came over him, as if he was listening out for something.

“Scott, what is it?” she asked, not sure if she really wanted to know.

“Gunshots” said Scott. “I can hear gunshots.”

\-----

It didn’t take long to find Stiles’ father because the sound of gunfire lead them straight to him. Unfortunately, it also lead them to the Oni. Stiles seized up when he saw his dad, shot gun in hand, firing repeatedly. Alongside him was Deputy Parrish doing exactly the same. At the moment there appeared to be only one Oni and the bullets did slow it down, but the three of them had barely even registered the situation before it was upon the two officers, swinging it’s sword with frightening speed.

Stiles cried out when he saw his father fall to the ground clutching his arm. The next second, Parrish was thrown hard against the wall. The deputy landed in a heap and lay still. Though it seemed impossible in his physical state, the fear for his father’s life had Stiles running, racing against a ticking bomb. He could think of nothing else other than to save him. He had to save him whether his useless body would let him or not.

In a fit of impulse fuelled adrenaline, he reached the Oni who had its sword raised high above its head ready to strike and grabbed its arm, tugging with all the strength he could conjure.

“Stiles, no!” was the last thing he heard before the Oni’s hand was clamped around his throat, squeezing. Stiles choked. He tried to call Derek’s name but his voice was trapped within him, reaching the top of his chest and then stopping in a silent scream of panic and pain. He felt his feet lift up from the floor and everything in his head scattered. He couldn’t breathe. And that was all there was. There was a desperate struggle to stop his mind clouding over with darkness, to stop the numbness seeping in, and then suddenly it stopped. Stiles fell to the floor in a fit of coughing, disorientated and lost.

It took him a few seconds to recover enough to even look around. The Oni above him stood still, almost too still, like it was waiting for something. His stomach coiled when behind him he saw both Deaton and Derek on the floor further down the hallway. There with them stood another one of the masked figures, now just standing still, waiting. He didn’t know what was happening. But at least his father was still alive. And that was _everything_.

“I’m glad you finally made an appearance, Stiles.”

Stiles hadn’t known what to expect. He’d never seen Void in the flesh. Not like everyone else. He’d only had the privilege of a horrifying bandaged creature crawling about in his head. Now he realised how preferable that image was. It was a painting compared to this. His own face, but the face of a _murderer_. His own eyes, but the eyes of a _monster_. His own hands, but the hands responsible for twisting a blade in his best friend, for ordering the death of Allison, for taking away light and hope and love. It was like looking in a mirror to see a reflection filtered through pure malevolence. And that reflection had taken solid form in this hallway. The Nogitsune had arrived. And it was everything Stiles hated.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I didn't want to hurt Stiles this much and now I feel like a bad person :'(

Stiles heaved himself to his feet as the Nogitsune walked towards him, slowly, mockingly. Derek was down. Deaton was against a wall clutching his stomach. The last time Stiles had felt this vulnerable was in the basement of a mental asylum freezing to death, leg jammed in a bear trap. But that hadn’t even been real. Not like this.

“We were beginning to think you’d never show.”

The voice he heard was tainted with something dark and sickening. Stiles didn’t move. His feet were rooted to the ground and his head, which was still spinning from having his air supply cut off, felt like lead.

“You don’t look so good, Stiles.” Stiles stared in bitter disbelief as his reflection came closer and then stopped a few feet away from him. He felt everything from anger to raging fear to nauseous disgust.

And then realisation hit him hard and fast like a cannon ball.

“This was a trap.” He said, internally cringing at the hitch his voice. The sound of fear was blatant. But it was true, he was scared, terrified in fact. Deaton had been right. However knowing that would have never changed his mind about coming. His dad lying immobilised behind him with an expression of pure horror on his face was evidence of that.

The Nogitsune tilted his head slightly to the left and the beginnings of a smirk came across its white broken lips.

“In a sense, yes” it said, a note of twisted satisfaction in the words. “Though it’s not as if I really _needed_ to trap you. I just decided to have a little fun along the way. This place, it’s a banquet of strife and pain. It’s all rather nourishing”

Frankly, Stiles didn’t care. He only cared about his father, his friends. What if it wanted his body back? He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t be the one hurting them again.

“What do you want?” it seemed like the obvious thing to ask, but then the Nogitsune’s hand was on his shoulder and he was staring straight into the eyes of himself. They were the same deep brown, but something shone there, something like glee. It took him several seconds to realise that he was holding his breath.

“Don’t touch him!” It was his father’s voice. “You don’t touch my son. You don’t touch him!”

The strained orders were ignored entirely.

“I want _you_.” Said the Nogitsune. Stiles felt its breath on his skin and shuddered. “You’re the one keeping me alive after all.” His body was embedded in place, defenceless. “Your pain. Your weakness. There’s a reason for it you know. You’re feeding me with your life, Stiles. The weaker you are, the stronger I become. I almost feel ashamed. You’ve done so much for me already. But it’s time for you to do more.”

Stiles felt the grip on his shoulder tighten and he wondered what was happening. But then his whole body turned to ice. It was torture. His eyes were open but he saw nothing. He was screaming but there was no sound leaving his lips. He was standing, but he couldn’t feel his legs. Or his arms. Or anything at all other than his body degrading from the inside out. And then it ended as quickly as it had started and he crashed to the floor, sure he now knew what death felt like.

His vision was faded and the sounds all around him began to echo and contort. He heard shouting, the voices of Scott and Kira. He thought he saw Isaac, the twins, even Peter, but it wasn’t really real. He was in some sort of peculiar dream, one that he didn’t understand in the slightest. Then he saw Lydia’s face. A mystical enchanting thing right above his, calling to him, and he knew for certain he was dreaming. The real world had gone away. And he didn’t really want it to come back.


	6. Chapter 6

It took Lydia several shouts and shakes before she could get Stiles to resurface. She stared down at him and felt tears form in her eyes. It was impossible but he’d become even paler. He looked almost emaciated.

“Ouch.” He said quietly, replicating his response to her waking him back in the tunnel, and Lydia nearly laughed in spite at how absolutely ridiculous it sounded.

She wasn’t paying attention to the turmoil around her. Everyone was there fighting. There were growls from wolves and the clashing of metal against metal. However it didn’t last long for soon the Nogitsune had vanished, along with the Oni. Perhaps there were too many of them for the Nogitsune to match. Perhaps it had gotten what it wanted already. Or maybe it was just waiting for the right time.

Stiles managed to push himself up into a sitting position but it wasn’t without a grimace appearing on his heavily fatigued face. He looked dazed as if he’d just woken from a long sleep into a place he didn’t recognise.

“Lydia?” he asked and his voice was almost childlike.

“I’m here” she said with a hand gently on his knee. Then Scott and Isaac were next to her with the same concern. A long red gash had appeared on the alpha’s forearm.

Stiles mouth moved but it was seconds before the words actually came out.

“Scott, your mom?”

“She’s okay, don’t worry. My dad took her outside.” Scott replied.

Stiles sighed, then his breath snagged.

“My dad...” Suddenly Stiles was scrambling round and lurching forward until he could wrap his arms around the Sheriff in relief. His father returned the embrace from where he rested against the wall, however his face was a picture of apprehension and worry. Stiles didn’t seem to notice. Lydia felt like she was intruding on something, though she still admired and hated Stiles’ ability to eliminate any trouble of his own for the sake of other people. She hated it because she felt like one day it would get him killed. Today it almost did.

The Sheriff patted his son on the back as to indicate him to pull away.

“Stiles,” his voice was everything that a father’s should be in such a situation. “What the hell just happened?”

When Stiles pulled back he had to put out a hand just to hold himself up. Even that trembled. He shook his head slightly at his father’s words. He was obviously still in some sort of state of shock, or just simply too exhausted to explain.

“Let’s just get out of here, okay?”

And that’s exactly what they did.

 

 

The majority of them ended up Derek’s loft where each werewolf began to slowly heal. Melissa and the Sheriff had been taken to a hospital out of town by Scott’s father. Lydia felt awful that Stiles was having to explain what had happened to the rest of the group when he looked so drained of everything. Everyone else stood listening intently. Even Peter was there, though she didn’t know why.

Lydia sat next to Stiles on Derek’s couch as he talked, feeling overly protective of him. His voice was unbelievably weak and his usual array of exaggerated hand gestures was non-existent. It was unnerving and upsetting to see him so unlike himself.

“Allison’s dead,” he said coldly. Lydia felt her own sharp intake of breath at the stinging reminder. “And now it looks like I’m dying too.”

There was a tension in the room, a sad, frightening tension that was visible upon everyone.

“He said that he needed me.” Stiles continued. “He said that the weaker I get, the stronger he becomes. That’s why he wanted me at the hospital, to make himself stronger. And now he is. I don’t know what that means.”

“It means that you’re connected.”

Stiles looked up from where he’d been staring at his hands to the figure of Deaton. As the man stepped forward there was a sudden air of authority about him despite the arm placed gently over his stomach where he’d been wounded.

“It means that even though the Nogitsune has been expelled from your body, the two of you are still sharing the same recourses.” He continued when no one questioned the statement. “In essence you’re still the same being. He is simply using the power he possesses to draw an advantage over you Stiles, and amplifying that power with your pain.”

“So he was trying to kill me?”

“No. It didn’t look like he was killing you. It looked like was feeding from you. He needs you, Stiles. You’re still his host. Without you he’d have no real substance, nothing to cling on to. He needs you alive. He always has.”

Stiles sat still for a few seconds and the whole room was shrouded in a silence that no one knew how to fill. Then he took a huge breath and let it out heavily, as if preparing himself.

“I guess you all know what you have to do then.”

Lydia suddenly found herself shaking her head, silently willing him not to say what he was obviously thinking. He wouldn’t, would he? He _couldn’t_. But to Lydia’s dismay, the words came out, each one like a stab to her chest.

“You have to kill me.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is what I kinda really want to happen even though I know it won't.

It was Scott that reacted first, letting out a sound that was some sort of cross between a laugh and a growl.

“That’s not gonna happen.”

Stiles gazed up at him, a sad determination in his eyes.

“You know it’s the only way, Scott. If I die then he dies, or at least turns back into whatever pointless thing he was before all this. Then no one else has to get hurt. It’s as simple as that.”

“The kid’s got a point.”

“No one asked you, Peter”

Derek and Isaac’s simultaneous response to Peter’s comment went unnoticed by Scott.

“What if we kill the Nogitsune first? We have the katana. Kira can use it, it’s worked before.” He said, desperately looking at Deaton as if the man would magically come out with a perfect solution. Kira shuffled uncomfortably and looked down at the floor with the mention of her name.

“And look how well that’s worked so far.” Stiles said gravely before Deaton could reply. “No one else is going to risk their lives for me Scott. No one else is going to die for me. I won’t let them.”

“And I won’t let you die either.” Scott was angry now. His claws were out. His breathing was heavy. His voice had raised several decibels. Deaton stared at the half transformed boy with concern.

“Scott, I think you should step outside. You’re not in a state to think logically about this.”

Scott looked frantically from Stiles to Deaton, from Deaton to Derek, before Deaton’s words became ever so slightly rational in his head.

“No one touches him, okay?” And with that he left the room, leaving another round of cheerless silence in his wake.

Lydia had sat in silence through it all, though she could feel something bubbling at the pit of her stomach, something like rage. She maintained her composure skilfully, because inside she was a mess of distraught emotion.

“I think Stiles and I should leave too.”

Stiles eyes snapped onto her, a look of utter bewilderment coming over him. Deaton shared a similar look.

“Right now that’s probably not the best idea, Lydia” he said, the emotion on his face showing through in his voice.

“Oh I think it’s a perfect idea.” She replied, not entirely sure where she was going with this. “Stiles needs rest anyway. I’m sure you’ll all work something out without us, being werewolves and all.”

She looked at Stiles then, addressing him directly.

“Stiles, I really think we should leave. Do you think you can get up the stairs?”

If she was trying to get at something, Stiles obviously had no clue what it was, however he nodded anyway and let her put her arm under him before leading him across to the rusting spiral staircase. Lydia pretended to ignore the puzzlement of everyone else in the room.

It took them longer than it should have to reach the small useless space upstairs. Stiles stumbled at least three times on the way up whilst Lydia maintained a level of equanimity for the entirety of it. However when they were finally upstairs and away from everyone she felt her anger take over and the unrelenting need to unleash it all.

“You’re the biggest hypocrite I know” she said in the harshest fashion to the utterly baffled boy standing before her. She didn’t care that werewolf ears would be listening downstairs. She was too furious. Too enraged. “I hate you right now, Stilinski. I hate you. You’re so stupid. So so so stupid.”

Lydia found herself unconsciously pacing back and forth, barely even looking at the target of her anger who was doing his best to stay upright in the middle of the room.

“I think you spent way too long in that mental hospital because it’s pretty obvious that you’ve lost your mind. You think you can just go ahead and kill yourself and everything will just miraculously be okay, don’t you? Well it won’t. It’ll be worse, Stiles. So much worse.”

Lydia left no room for Stiles to respond as he stared back at her with a blank look of incomprehension.

“You don’t care, do you? You really don’t care if you die or not.” Lydia could sense tears forming and it only aided her frustration. “Well guess what. It’s not you that dies, Stiles. It’s everyone around you. Everyone who has to get on with their life, wondering how to live without you in it. Do you remember saying that? Because I remember.”

Realisation was beginning to hit him now. Lydia could tell. But she was so angry. So angry that it didn’t matter. She had to keep going. There was nothing else she could do.

“You think you’re being selfless. You think you’re being a hero, don’t you? Well sometimes being a hero is the most selfish thing you can possibly do. You want to die for everyone else, but you’re forgetting about everyone who’d die for you. Scott. Your dad. You’re forgetting about _me_.”

Then suddenly Lydia found her hands on Stiles shoulders as a tear fell down her cheek. She could feel the emotion inside her building, the fist clenching in her chest.

“What about _me_ , Stiles? What am I going to do when I have to watch my two best friends’ coffins being put into the ground? You can’t die, Stiles. And you know why? Because I’m barely holding it together as it is. And I need you way more than any god damn fox does. I need you, Stiles. I need you so much it terrifies me.”

It was only then that she truly looked at him. His eyes were wide, glistening, but they understood. His mouth was open slightly, but wordless. There was no need to speak. She knew she hadn’t changed his mind. But at least he understood.

She felt his arms pull her into as tight embrace as he could manage. She held him tighter, tears now flowing freely. Everything from the last couple of days poured out and she could no longer control it. She was vulnerable, exposed, but that was the only okay thing amongst a whole world of everything but. His cheek was pressed up against her hair and she felt his fractured breath upon her neck. Her hands clutched onto him as if he were the anchor to her ship, preventing her from floating away. She didn’t ever want to let him go. And for a second she didn’t think she ever would.

Later, she had no idea how long, Derek was at the top of the staircase. They’d been entwined in each other’s arms long enough for Lydia’s tears to dry, something that she only noticed after they broke apart. For a fraction of a second, Derek looked ashamed as if he was interfering with some kind of precious thing, but then he cleared his throat and announced something that had them both rising with hope.

“We have a plan.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't updated in a while, life is hectic at the moment. The next chapter will pick up the pace and will happen VERY differently from the show so keep reading!

The plan was pathetic. Yet another suicide mission from Scott and his band of frustratingly loyal puppies. Stiles had been shot down the second he had tried to protest. It ended with Derek telling him he’d knock him unconscious and tie him to a chair if he kept arguing. So he stopped, because there was no way he was letting this go ahead without at least being there, however useless he was.

The thing that frustrated him most was that they were getting Lydia involved. Yes she had powers. Yes she was every kind of badass. But she was fragile, maybe not so much as himself, but she could still be broken, especially by a sociopathic borderline undefeatable ninja with a sword.

They wanted her to find him.

They were connected after all, she and Stiles. And it only seemed logical that she would be able to locate his other half, just as she had done previously, when he just so happened to be lying unconscious in the middle of an empty car park with a huge gash across his stomach. And Stiles knew that it was the best, if not the only way to find him. He wouldn’t admit it though.

So here they were, driving again, Lydia at the wheel, Kira sat in the passenger seat. Scott had insisted on abandoning his bike to sit in the back with Stiles. So now Stiles sat perched between his best friend and Isaac, feeling like a toddler fixed into some kind of metaphorical child harness. Everyone else was driving behind except Peter, who’d without difficulty decided that Stiles wasn’t worth putting his life on the line for. For once he’d been the only one to see sense.

The pain was becoming intolerable. It was in his head, behind his eyes, in his joints seizing them up. He flexed his fingers slowly and winced as he did so, feeling spasms of hurt run through the muscles. His whole body felt like it was void of blood, warmth, like a living zombie. And he couldn’t stop shivering. It was the thing he hated most because it blew the cover he’d been trying so hard to keep up.

“Surely he shouldn’t be coming with us. We can do this without him.”

 It was the typical thing for Isaac to say. Stiles didn’t look at him, just continued to stare at his hands. He rubbed them together in agitation, trying to get any kind of feeling other than pain back into his skin.

“No you can’t.” he said, too tired to put any bitterness behind the words.

 Isaac had looked relatively numb since the moment Stiles had seen him in the hospital, littered with cuts from the Oni fight. His expression hadn’t changed, nor had his demeanour. Stiles knew why. And it was unsettling, seeing him in such a way.

Stiles jumped as Isaac sighed, placing his hand upon his own. Before Stiles could say anything Isaac immediately started to take the pain away, and despite his upmost surprise he didn’t have the strength to protest anymore.

“What the hell man?” said Isaac, his eyebrows turning inwards. “How the hell are you putting up with this?”

“It’s not that bad.”

“It feels worse than you smell.”

At Isaac’s words, Scott turned from where he’d been staring out of the window.

“What?” he said, his expression of concern intensifying.

Stiles looked from him to Isaac, mouth open and almost ashamed.

“Do I really smell that bad?”

Scott hesitated. He obviously didn’t want to answer the question. So Isaac did it for him.

“Stiles, you smell like a _corpse_.”

In response to the words, Lydia’s hands clenched around the steering wheel, so tightly that her knuckles went white, though she said nothing.

Stiles felt himself slump against the car seat.

“Oh.” He said, for he could think of no other words.

“It doesn’t matter now” said Scott, pulling Stiles hand from Isaac’s to take his share of the pain. “We’re going to save you. We’re going to save everyone.”

 

Five minutes later they arrived.

“Really? The school? Lydia are you sure?”

It was Kira that asked. Lydia just nodded, biting her lip in apprehension.

“If Lydia thinks he’s here, then he’s here.”

Scott jumped out of the jeep, as did Isaac. When Stiles stumbled out, again it was Lydia that was there to support him. And it was beginning to feel more comforting than embarrassing having her arm wrapped tightly around him. Perhaps it was just as much for her sake as it was for his. The thought made him both happy and sad.

Derek, the twins and Deaton were with them not a minute later.

“Come on, let’s get this done.”

With Derek’s words of finality, he and Scott shared another one of their silent conversations within a glance. And then they were all running towards the entrance of the school while Stiles and Lydia tried their best to keep up.

They arrived at the doors and everyone stopped and turned to Stiles. He gulped, trembling with the thought of what he was about to do. Deaton stepped towards him holding out a tiny bag to which he quickly took.

“You know what to do?”

Stiles nodded.

“You know you don’t have to do this, Stiles” said Scott worriedly. “One of us can take your place.”

“No you can’t.” Stiles repeated the words he’d said in the jeep. “He wants _me_. He’ll come for me. I have to do this.”

“I’ll come with you.”

It was Lydia that spoke.

“No,” Stiles slipped out of her grasp, and immediately some of the pain that had been taken away earlier seemed to seep back in with the separation. “Let’s just stick with the plan, get this done.”

Lydia grabbed onto him again insistently.

“Screw the plan.” She said with more intensity. “The plan sucks anyway. So shut up and let me come with you.”

Stiles sighed with frustration. He knew there was no point in arguing. There never was with Lydia. Having her in his arms only made the whole thing ten times more terrifying. He didn’t  want to have to worry for her life as well. But it looked like he was going to have to.

With the banshee wrapped around his arm and the bag of powder in his  hand, Stiles stepped up to the door and placed his hand upon the handle, pushing it open slightly. It was dark inside. Too dark.

“Isaac,” he said before entering the building, turning around to face the werewolf. Isaac’s face was questioning.

Stiles sighed again.

“I’m sorry, okay.”

He felt like he needed to get it off his chest considering they were all about to die anyway.

“What for?” Isaac replied even though he obviously knew what Stiles meant. Stiles didn’t know how to answer, so he didn’t. He simply turned and entered the building, with Lydia adamantly holding onto him all the way. He felt totally unprepared for whatever lay ahead. But _it was going to work,_ he kept telling himself. _It had to work_.

They were going to trap a fox.

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm evil. Enjoy. If you can.

The hallway was silent, dark and ominous. The classroom was worse. As they stepped into room 24, one of the history rooms, it felt like they'd cornered themselves, walking straight into the hook of a fishing line. Trapped. Lydia had to remind herself that it was intentional. As much as she hated the idea, Stiles was bait.

Now, so was she.

"We have to do this quick. He probably already knows we're here."

Lydia took the bag from Stiles and got to work. Even though Stiles quite obviously didn't like it, Lydia knew it was only practical that she do the manual labour right now. The boy shouldn't have been doing anything at all, let alone luring a murderous supernatural being to his doorstep.

It didn't take long for her to lay out a line of powder from the bag, covering half the perimeter of the room, leaving the doorway free. At half way she cut across the centre of the classroom, dividing it into two. Stiles propped himself up against the window sill where moonlight shone down through trees and left dappled patterns on the floor. He remained watching the doorway, waiting. Lydia noticed him struggling to stand up, so as soon as she had finished, she rushed over to him, once again bearing his weight. He looked at her with an expression she'd never be able to understand or explain.

"Thanks." He said, and she could tell that he meant it.

"What now?"

The fear was evident in her voice. The same fear that was all over Stiles' increasingly sallow face.

"I guess we wait."

* * *

They didn't have to wait long.

"You know you make it all too easy. Essentially, this is a game of hide and seek. And I think you're forgetting that I'm the seeker."

Its steps were all too slow as it walked into the room, stopping in the centre, so calm that Lydia couldn't even see it breathing. It glanced up and down Stiles' frame and a smirk danced across its lips.

"Does it hurt, Stiles? It looks like it hurts."

Stiles face was a statue, though his body still trembled against Lydia's skin.

The Nogitsune's cold eyes, Stiles' eyes, landed on Lydia then, and her very bones turned to ice.

"Hello little banshee" it said tunefully. "I'm glad to see my friend here brought some moral support."

Lydia remained as stoic as she possibly could. She wasn't going to give this monster the satisfaction of her fear.

The Nogitsune's eyes darted down, taking in the room. It landed on the line of powder only two metres from its feet, running between the two teenagers and itself. An expression of pity loomed across its features as it looked up, though the emotion was mocking in its entirety. Words came out a laugh.

"Are you really trying to trick me?"

Stiles remained a figurine, emotionless.

"Not trying," he said. "We already have."

The Nogitsune turned on its feet to find Scott, Derek and Deaton standing just inside the doorway, a line of powder forming a curve around them. Scott held an identical bag in his hand, now empty of its contents. They'd sealed the line, trapping all three of them inside.  _This was the plan,_ Lydia told herself desperately. This  _is_  the plan.

"It's Letharia Vulpina" said Scott.

 _Letharia Vulpina_ , the mountain ash to Japanese fox spirits apparently. It seemed legit enough.

The Nogitsune tilted its head, quickly coming to grips with its invisible cage.

"Oh I can see that."

* * *

It might have been slightly irked, but it didn't show it. The replica of Stiles' face looked more amused, as if watching some sort of humorous sitcom play out before its eyes. It made Scott more unsettled than ever, for it gave the overwhelming impression that this was all expected, that Scott was leading all of his friends straight to their deaths.

The Nogitsune stared at him, eyes latched on as if willing him to break, to give up; to leave.

"What's your plan, Scott?" it asked, voice soft and gentle yet somehow in the harshest way. "Can't you see that you have nothing?"

Scott allowed a half smile to brush his lips.

"Did you really think we'd come all the way here without anything to stop you with?"

The Nogitsune imitated his look of self assurance.

"What about me, Scott?" it said, though it didn't need an answer. "Did you really think  _I_  would?"

There was a crash then, deafening and discordant as Derek was pulled from the room and flung hard into the lockers outside, leaving a huge dent before he crashed to the floor.

The Oni.

Scott's heart rate became rapid. His palms sweated. But it didn't matter. This was what was meant to happen. It was what they'd  _known_  would happen.

"Stick with the plan," he yelled to the others who'd followed him into the hallway just as they'd prepared. "Get them outside. Keep them distracted."

Derek hauled himself up from the floor and heaved at one of the black figures before it could attack Scott. The Oni stumbled a little and then turned, pulling its sword back preparing to strike. But before it could, something plunged deep into the centre of its chest. An arrow.

Bright green light sprung from the wound and seeped out from behind its mask. A second later the figure was gone. Dead. Argent stood at the end of the hallway, already loading up another arrow as Kira and the other werewolves fought sword and claws, slowly leading them towards the exit.

"Thank Allison." Called Argent as another arrow made contact. Another Oni dead.

Scott stared in disbelief. An overwhelming feeling washed over him. A feeling close to hope. They could be killed. They could  _win_.

He turned back to the Nogitsune standing in the middle of the room. There it stayed, perfectly static, but beneath its skin was a frenzy of thunder, fury, rage.

His heart felt like it was fighting to break through his chest. This might actually work. This  _could_ work. This  _was going_  to work.

"Do it Deaton. Do it now."

* * *

Lydia's fists were clenched tight, holding handfuls of Stiles' Tshirt as she watched Deaton pull out a small leather bound book and begin to read. It sounded like a cross between Japanese and Latin, but Lydia knew exactly what it was. It was an exorcism.

They were going to exorcise the Nogitsune.

"What are you doing?"

Its voice was no longer laced with certainty. Instead, it had become venom, poison from its throat. Lydia saw its eyes flash frantically to Scott.

"What is he doing?"

Lydia had never thought the sound of someone's fear would make her so hopeful. The Oni fight had quickly been taken into the parking lot, so the echoes no longer bounced from the walls and roof. Now the only sound was the heavy breathing from all them, the heaviest coming from the raging copy of Stiles in the middle of the room.

Suddenly it dropped to its knees, curling in on itself in pain. Its whole body jerked as Deaton continued to recite. With each sentence its face became more contorted, more pain stricken, more furious.

Lydia watched in horror, not once letting go of the boy in her arms. She didn't know whether to believe it or not. It was working. As the Nogitsune writhed, it began to speak, words laced with metal and blood.

"You can't kill me."

Its voice was a whisper.

"You can't kill me." It repeated, and Lydia had never heard so much iniquity.

"YOU CAN'T KILL ME."

Deaton stopped reading, distracted by the sudden outburst of sick twisted rage. The Nogitsune took the opportunity to push itself back to its feet, twitching as it did so.

"You think you can defeat me?" It said, eyes flicking between the four of them. "You think you can expel me with your little magic tricks? Well guess what. I have a magic trick of my own. Want to see?"

The Nogitsune reached into his pocket then and Lydia felt her heart skip a beat as it pulled something out slowly. A blade. A tail. A broken kitsune tail. It turned its body to Stiles and placed the sharp edge of the object against the palm of its other hand.

"We're connected, Stiles." It said, voice cracking in weakness from the spell. "Always have been, always will be. And you know what that means? It means I can do this."

The Nogitsune closed its hand tightly around the blade, dragging it along the length of the sharp ridge leisurely. Lydia felt Stiles jerk away from her with a sudden intake of breath. He clutched his hand, staring down in horror at where a deep red gash had appeared. Blood began to swell and drip onto the floor.

"Stiles!"

Both Lydia and Scott spoke in anguish. Scott lurched forward, stopping before the line of powder in frustration. Lydia simply stood, horrified at what she was seeing.

The Nogitsune turned back to Scott and Deaton, a remnant of its previous glory returning to its face. Deaton needed to keep reading. He had to carry on. Lydia tried to shout it at him but the words seemed lost in her throat.

"You know I can heal, Scott. You've seen it happen. But I'm pretty sure Stiles can't." The Nogitsune spoke again to the werewolf, repositioning the blade in its hand. "Sweet, sweet Stiles. Your brother. How do you think he'll heal from this?"

Then there was the sound of the blade slicing through air. The sound of it sinking into flesh. Then a single, devastating cry of agony.

Then, Stiles dropped.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this isn't the end. I'm not quite that evil.

Stiles barely felt himself hit the floor.

He couldn't help crying out repeatedly as he felt it twisting inside his thigh, causing a pain so excruciating he wanted to be sick. He clutched at the wound, desperately trying to pull whatever was in there out, but his hands met nothing.

He heard Scott shouting as Lydia fell to her knees next to him, tears forming in her eyes.

The word "Stop" echoed through the room repeatedly, but an echo was all it was for the white hot agony stuffing his senses.

There was one more wrench, one more flash of intense pain, and then relief as the kitsune tail was pulled out.

He felt a sob leave his lips as he fell back into the arms of the banshee. Huge splintered breaths rattled his body.

As his senses swept in on him, his stomach turned, his head rang, his leg throbbed, but the main thing he noticed was that Deaton was reading again, faster now, more forcefully, more panicked.

The Nogitsune was laughing, a manic, strained sound. It hadn't fallen this time. Instead it remained standing, holding the now bloodied tail at the end of an outstretched twitching arm.

"I'll kill him, Scott."

Deaton paused again. Stiles felt Scott's eyes connect with his own, full of panic, full of fear, full of pain.

"All it takes is one cut to the stomach, just like before, and Stiles will bleed to death in seconds. So break the line and I might let you and your friends live."

Deaton looked from the Nogitsune to the shaking figure of Stiles, from Stiles to Scott, utterly clueless of what to do.

"Deaton, carry on."

Stiles voice was the sound of something tortured and broken, just like his body. He could hear the glass in his throat, the acid in his chest.

"He's bluffing. If I die he dies too. We know that."

Deaton looked for reassurance from Scott, who nodded, though his face was everything but sure. The Nogitsune stumbled backwards as Deaton started up again, letting out an icy yell full of rage and desperation and pain.

There couldn't be long left now.  _Surely_  there couldn't be long left.

Stiles hopes were proven right as the Nogitsune once again fell to the floor and started convulsing. A cough came from its mouth followed by a wisp of black smoke that quickly dissipated into the air. It looked as if it was choking, gagging.

Somehow through the spasms, it managed to place a palm flat on the floor and push its torso from the ground. It stared at Scott, who looked down upon its dying form in disgust.

The Nogitsune's next words were unexpected to everyone in the room. Because they served as a warning to something inevitable. Something horrific.

"You underestimate me." It said. Though pained, the iota of a smile remained in its voice.

Scott's eyes suddenly widened as the Nogitsune raised the blade once more.

"Deaton stop!"

But it was too late.

Stiles felt a sudden agony flare across his stomach. Then a scream of panic from both of his best friends. Then a set of strong hands pressing down on him, where some sort of red substance flowed between the fingers. Then numbness.

He would welcome death like the arms of his father.


	11. Chapter 11

"No no no, stay with me Stiles. Don't close your eyes. Please don't close your eyes."

Lydia gazed down at the body in her lap as it shook, breaths becoming lighter, skin becoming paler. Tears fell onto his skin, her own tears. With a trembling hand she wiped them away, caressing his face as if her touch would put life back into him.

Scott was there too, clutching Stiles stomach as crimson seeped through the fabric of his t-shirt. There was too much of it. Way too much. The sight of it made Lydia's head spin, her chest ache.

"Not again." she sobbed. "Please not again."

The Nogitsune was slumped on the floor as well now, having allowed both Deaton and Scott past without trouble. Now they all crouched around his fading form, disbelief wracking their bodies.

Scott looked to Deaton, sheer terror in his eyes.

"What can we do?!" he said, his voice breaking, or already broken. "Tell me! How do we save him?! What can we do?!"

Lydia barely noticed Derek and Isaac arriving in the doorway, stopped in their tracks by the scene before them.

Deaton opened his mouth but no words came out. He looked back to Stiles in dismay.

Scott shook his head.

"No." He said. Never had the word held so much conviction. "This isn't happening. This can't be happening. Stiles, don't you dare."

Stiles eyes were unfocused and he strained to concentrate on his best friend. Their gaze met, but only for a few short seconds.

"Scott, it's okay." he said, and the words were no more than a whisper.

"No, no it's not, Stiles. It's not okay."

Lydia stared down as a dreadful sensation arose within her, bidding her to let go, to scream. Her fists clenched around the material of his t-shirt, willing him back to reality, back to Earth. Suddenly deep hazel eyes stared back, and she felt like they were looking straight into the entirety of her being, understanding her thoughts, experiencing her emotions. A tear pooled in the corner of his eye, reflecting glistening moonlight as it fell slowly into his hairline. Lydia fell forward, placing her forehead against his collar bone, feeling his racing heartbeat against her knuckles where she clung to his chest. Gradually the beating became less frequent. The severity of his shaking began to dwindle. His ragged breaths became calm. As his body settled, the feeling inside Lydia augmented, swelling up through her veins, clutching at her throat. It petrified her.

"Scott, give him the bite."

She said the words in a rush of panic and grief.

"Scott, bite him!"

Scott looked down at Stiles whose eyes widened with Lydia's command. His lips parted to protest but all that came was a cough followed by a sprinkle of red on his bottom lip. Scott appeared almost dazed. She could tell he was arguing with himself, trying to decide whether to spare his own sanity or respect the final unspoken wish of his brother.

Lydia grabbed either side of the dying boy's face, unable to stop her tears from flowing.

"Stiles?" she said, once again feeling the heartbreak of his shattering gaze. "Remember what I told you? Remember how much I need you, how much we  _all_  need you. Please don't make me lose you. Please don't make me do that."

And then she leaned down and pressed her lips to his.

It was hurried. The angle was awkward. Lydia felt his tears mix with her own and the frostiness of his skin against hers. But despite the cold, it put warmth into her, into him. For it said all the words she was too afraid to say, exactly what she  _needed_  to say.

When she pulled away, a part of his weakening expression reminded her of something. It reminded her of a locker room, of a panic attack; of a kiss. It was the same kind of longing pain. The same kind of friendship, of  _love_ , that she hoped would bring him back, that she wished would make everything okay.

But Stiles' face was different now. It was no longer accepting of death. He wanted to fight. To  _live_. If not for himself then for all those around him.

His eyes drifted to Scott. Though he didn't have the strength to nod or speak, Scott understood completely. He was giving permission. The permission Scott needed to save his life.

Taking Stiles' limp wrist in his hand, Scott's teeth extended into points. A single tear rolled down the werewolf's cheek. Lydia could tell that he wasn't ready to do this. None of them were. But that didn't matter because it meant Stiles could live. It meant Stiles could carry on being her humble distraction, and oh so much more than that.

With one last glance at his brother, Scott took a deep trembling breath and leaned in.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Scott paused, his teeth only centimetres from Stiles' skin.

"Bite him and it'll only kill him faster."

The Nogitsune's voice was a strangled, dying sound from where it lay. Feebly, it pushed itself up until it was perched on its knees. Lydia could see death on its skin, in its eyes. It was dying, dying along with Stiles, along with its host.

"I've been in his head." It said. "I've seen what he is, what he's made of. He's not strong enough. Not like this. Not this close to death. He'll die the second the venom reaches his heart, so long as the blood loss doesn't kill him first."

Scott looked fearfully down at Stiles, whose heartbeat was becoming increasingly untraceable under Lydia's hands, whose eyelids were slowly getting heavier. He then looked up to Lydia, whose face was a picture of pain, fear and doubt. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know what to say. Everything seemed so surreal, like a nightmare.

Lydia heard Derek step forward from the doorway.

"Then what do you suggest?" he said. Lydia heard fear and sadness in his voice. "If he dies, you're nothing. So what's your plan?"

The Nogitsune didn't smile. There was a sense of desperation and anger surrounding him. It really was going to die. Or at least revert back to what it had been previously. But Lydia didn't care. She didn't care whether it lived or died or destroyed the whole damn planet. Because right now her whole world revolved around this one boy. This one beautiful disappearing boy.

Somehow, the Nogitsune found its feet, standing up as Derek stepped back behind the line of powder, smart enough to not take any risks. Blood was soaking through the thing's clothing, trickling from its lips.

"There's only one way to save him." It said. "He has to let me back in."

As Stiles' breathing hitched and stopped, Scott panicked. He looked to Deaton who shook his head, though his face showed that the Nogitsune told truth. There was no reason for it not to.

"I don't need his permission." It raised its voice, knowing that time was quickly running out. "Just break the line. Break the line and let me heal him."

Lydia stared down. Stiles was slipping. And fast. She felt the scream only seconds away, searing and blazing in her chest.

"Scott!" she cried as Stiles' eyes began to close.

"Scott, do it." Said Derek.

Knowing Stiles would hate him; knowing he would never be forgiven; an act of pure selfishness, Scott dived forward and scattered the powder across the floor, freeing a monster; sending his best friend straight back to hell.

The Nogitsune vanished.

Then, beneath Lydia's hands, a heart stopped beating.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is basically the scene I needed to be in the finale but wasn't.

Stiles stared down at his plate as a delicious looking set of pancakes were slid onto it. Famished, he quickly poured syrup all over them and began eating. They were the best pancakes ever, just like always.

"Honey, the worlds not going to end if you don't finish those in the next two minutes. Slow down."

Stiles smiled half heartedly up at his mother around a mouth full of food.

He was sat at the kitchen table. The morning sun sent white light shining through the open window, adding a pleasant haze to the whole room. He felt warmth tickling the skin on his arms. He could smell cut grass and wild flowers from outside and hear the distant sound of a lawn mower as some miserable teenager carried out their morning chores. It was summer. And the whole world knew it.

Claudia Stilinski sat down diagonally across from him, mug of hot coffee in hand. Her skin was pale and soft. Dark brown hair fell onto her shoulders loosely. Kind hazel eyes shimmered in the light.

"I figure you're seeing Scott today?" she said, and her voice was warm and tender.

Stiles swallowed the current mouthful he was chewing.

"Yeah," he said, groggy morning voice still noticeable. "Kinda like every other day."

His mother smiled and sipped at her coffee, precarious lest it was still too hot.

"You two really are inseparable." She said, though it was nothing like an accusation, simply a pleasant observation.

"Mom, you're only just noticing this now?"

His mother let out a little laugh, more to herself than anything.

"And what about that girl? The pretty one. Lydia was her name, wasn't it?"

Stiles paused on the way to lifting his fork to his mouth.

"I'm working on it." He said before completing the action.

Stiles felt oddly content this morning. He didn't know why. It was a restful feeling that went right down to the pit of his stomach, warming him from the inside out. Perhaps it was the fact that he still had two weeks left of his summer holidays, without the stress of school work or examinations. Perhaps it was the weather, but the heat was only typical of California. Or maybe it was just the simply wondrous food in front of him, the food he shoved down his throat as if it could be stolen away from him in a second. That couldn't be the reason though, for these pancakes were given to him almost every morning. They were his mom's speciality. But for some reason, right now they tasted like a delicacy; like it was the first time he'd tasted anything so good in years.

As he pondered, he felt something wet upon his cheek. At first he didn't have a clue what it was. But then as it dripped from his chin he became conscious of his watering eyes. It was a tear.

"Stiles, honey, what's wrong?"

His mother's look of concern was nurturing and loving. Stiles felt himself jump when her hand touched his forearm. For some reason it felt alien, but in the best way. He wanted it to stay there forever, solid, constant,  _real_. Another tear fell and created its own tiny pool on the table surface. He looked down at it in confusion, wondering how such things of sadness could come from someone so happy.

Stiles opened his mouth to respond but paused when his eyes landed upon the neat pile of paper sitting in the middle of the table. It was the police report that his father had spent all last night finishing. Something about murder at the hospital, committed by tall masked figures. When he tried to make out the words, all he saw was a jumble of shapes and letters, barely distinguishable from one another. And then a spasm of fear ripped through his bliss.

"I can't save them."

The words left Stiles' lips before he even realised he was speaking. He looked up to his mother who stared back, unsurprised and understanding. She didn't speak.

"I can't save them, Mom." He said, unaware of where the outburst was coming from. But he knew. Even though he didn't want to, deep down the truth was eating him away. "I can't save anyone. I couldn't even save myself."

He felt his mother's thumb brushing against his skin, trying to comfort, trying to protect.

"He won, Mom. He won."

Stiles felt a sob wrack through his body, though it made no sound when it left his lips. His mother's gaze was full of sadness, full of care as her hand tightened around his arm. It felt so real, but the trick only made him hurt more.

"Don't cry, Stiles." Her voice was like a sad song, so perfectly heartbreaking. "Please stop crying."

"I-I can't. Make it stop. Please make it stop. It hurts."

His mother sighed, a sound full of compassion and kindness.

"Only you can do that, honey." She said. "And you can. I promise you can. You might not think it, but you're strong, Stiles. You're stronger than any of them in here."

She placed her hand gently on the side of his head.

"And  _in here_  is where it really counts, after all."

Stiles sniffed and looked down at his half eaten pancakes suddenly no longer hungry. He couldn't even taste them on his tongue anymore. With a shake, he realised that the sound of the lawnmower had stopped, along with the scent of summer; the warmth upon his skin. He wondered if they'd ever really been there at all.

"I wanted so bad for this to be real." He said, his voice trembling.

"Who says it's not?" Replied his mother adamantly. "You've read the last Harry Potter book, haven't you? Just because it's happening inside your head doesn't mean it isn't real, Stiles."

Suddenly the two of them were standing, not in the kitchen but in his bedroom. He didn't know how they'd arrived there but he didn't question it. They were stood in front of his door. It was closed.

"Please don't make me leave."

His mother looked at him, full of sympathy and heartache.

"Honey, it's your choice. I'm not making you do anything."

Stiles let out a sigh.

"But I have to, don't I."

His mother didn't reply.

"I don't think I can beat him, Mom."

"Stiles, I know you can. It's your head. Take control of it. Figure it out. You always figure it out."

"Not always."

She pulled him into an embrace then. And it was everything he remembered it to be. The brush of her cosiest jumper on his arms, the tight loving squeeze, her heartbeat, so  _alive_.

"You know what to do." She said as she pulled away.

Stiles took a deep breath and nodded, turning to face the door. He wiped the tears from his cheeks with one quick movement. He wasn't ready. But he never would be. He knew that pain, and fear, and suffering were all awaiting behind the door. They would welcome him back with a smile and a slap. Even so, he reached out with a shaking hand and wrapped his fingers around the familiar door handle.

"Good luck, honey. I love you."

"I love you too, Mom."

Stiles had never been so afraid. As he twisted the handle and heard the click, he couldn't help but be thankful for the five minutes of peace he'd received before delving back into another world of chaos.

He took one last glance at his mother, putting the image he saw in a safe place. Her face. Her eyes. Her heartbroken smile. Everything about her in that moment was perfect. Alive. Beautiful.

Then he opened the door and sunk back into the dark.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was a lil' bit rushed but I hope it's still alright

"He's alive isn't he? Deaton, tell me he's alive."

Deaton gazed at the terrified girl, stunned by his own distress.

"Lydia, I..."

"Stop," she retorted immediately, holding onto the boy so tight that her fingers would leave marks on his skin. "We can bring him back.  _We can bring him back_. He'll be okay."

Deaton shut his mouth, lost in an unexplainable reality.

To his left, Scott had gone deadly quiet. He could hear exactly what Lydia was denying she could feel. The absence of heartbeat. The absence of breath. Stiles' whole body radiated silence.

"Scott?" Lydia looked to him almost angrily. "Scott, say something. He'll be okay, right?"

Scott simply stared. Eyes wide at a boy he'd never seen so still. There were no tears, no words, nothing.

Isaac stood, unmoving. Unable to comprehend what he was seeing. A boy, a friend,  _Stiles_ , blood soaked and motionless, eyes shut yet so far from sleep.

Derek was silent too.

The entire world seemed to resound with a void of timeless nothing.

Lydia shook her head frantically in non verbal protest. Her oxygen supply seemed to cut off as it was caught in the middle of an excruciating sob. But eventually, the abyss swallowed her too. With arms still clinging to the lifeless corpse, she stared into nowhere, unthinking, hollow.

"I didn't scream." She whispered.

* * *

The basement of Aichen House greeted Stiles with all the sinister glory that it normally did.

The familiar trepidation arose quickly within him. It was dark, no difference there. But this time it seemed almost too dark, as if the blackness that filled the air was some kind of solid entity, shrouding the roof and walls, enclosing him in a blanket of fear. He took a few steps forward, testing his own nerve. Yet again he was trapped inside his own head and in desperate need of an escape route. But the shadows surrounded him like demons, telling him to lie down and face the certainty of his tormented future. Lie down and give in like a good boy.

"There you are again, Stiles."

It was the voice he was always expecting and still yet to be prepared for.

"I've been looking for you."

Stiles felt a twinge of panic strike through him, for although he searched, he could not see the thing that possessed the words. The voice came from all around him, materialising from the darkness itself. Stiles took a deep breath and let it out with trembling conviction.

"I'm not going to let you win."

There was a laugh somewhere, everywhere.

"Oh but I already have."

Stiles heard something to the left of him and spun round. He held his arms outstretched in the darkness as if they could shield him from whatever was there, what he  _knew_  was there.

"I have to admit, it was nice to have my own body for a while. But I'm going to enjoy having your company again Stiles."

Stiles sniffed, trying to stop tears pricking his eyes.

"This is my mind." He said as collectedly as he could manage. "I control it. If you're part of it, I can control you too."

"No one can control their own mind Stiles. Especially not you." Came the voice again. "That's the beauty of this little predicament were in. You torture yourself so much there's no need for me to do it for you."

Another sound to his right. Stiles jumped, turning to the place it had come from. Again, only darkness greeted him. He couldn't help shaking excessively now. The fear rattled through his stomach and limbs, consistent and unremitting.

"They're all going to die, Stiles."

Another noise. Another exposing flinch.

"Every last one."

Stiles felt sick. How was he meant to fight something that he couldn't even see?

There was another cruel laugh, except this one suddenly sounded more solid. It came from a few feet in front of him, still invisible, mocking him.

"I wouldn't step back if I were you, Stiles."

Suddenly, the bandaged face was mere centimetres from his own, lunging out of the dark like the monster it was. Startled, Stiles stumbled backwards only to be met with the sound of a sickening, horrific snap. Something had closed on his leg.

At first Stiles felt nothing as he collapsed. Only shock. He hit the nearest wall and slumped to the floor, and only then did the agony seep in. The ever so familiar feeling of the steel jaw trap cut through his ankle and raged through his entire body, clouding his head with a haze of white sickness. A cry of pain and nausea left his lips. He didn't look. He couldn't look.

The Nogitsune crouched before him then, only inches away. Stiles felt its breath on his skin as tears trailed down his cheeks. He dared open his eyes and this time saw his own face staring back at him, its expression almost pitiful.

"I'm sorry I'm not very original, Stiles. That doesn't look pleasant." Its voice was too quiet. "I did warn you."

"This isn't real." Stiles said through gritted teeth, shutting his eyes tight. "This isn't real. This isn't real."

"It's as real as I want it to be."

The Nogitsune gave Stiles a quick pat on the shoulder before standing up and walking leisurely across the basement.

"Now we've got some scores to settle, haven't we Stiles?"

"Just leave them alone." Stiles' words twisted into a grunt of pain.

"I'm afraid I can't do that." Replied the Nogitsune casually. "Although I'm sure they'll be happy to see you breathing again. It's time to wake up. For one of us anyway."

Stiles thrashed against the heavy lump of metal pinning him to the ground only to be met by a dizzying surge of agony. He cried out again, a mixture of fire, grief and frustration.

"There's no use trying to get out Stiles. So long as I'm up here, you'll always be down there. Struggling only makes me stronger."

Stiles sobbed and caved in on himself, curling up against the concrete wall, unable to accept that after everything, he had lost. His friends were going to die and it would be him that signed their death sentences.

"Oh look at you." Said the Nogitsune sardonically. "You almost make me feel guilty about this whole thing. Almost. But I'm sure seeing your friends will make us both feel better."

Stiles wondered if it was possible to have a panic attack in ones own imagination.

"Time to go."

With a gasp and a shake, Stiles' eyes opened into the realm of the living.


	14. Chapter 14

When Stiles' heart restarted, so did the world.

Scott had felt like he was drowning, submerged in water with no sign of release until Stiles' gasp of air had heaved him from the icy depths. He nearly collapsed as relief washed over his entire body; as feeling returned. He saw it explode in Lydia too. Her hand was automatically drifting through Stiles' hair as if he was a child that needed protecting. However it was a relief almost immediately replaced by tension for the look on Stiles' face. It was one of absolute terror.

"Stiles?"

Stiles shook. He looked worse than ever. Barely alive.

"You should have killed me." He said before darkness overtook him once more.

* * *

They took Stiles back to Scott's house. The occasion felt uncomfortably familiar. Again, Scott was forced to watch the unconscious body of his best friend being dragged through his front door with a huge gaping wound across his stomach. He felt an odd sense of déjà vu.

They lay him on Scott's bed. Scott sat by him, not wanting to leave his side. Eventually it was just the two of them. But with Stiles deeply asleep, Scott felt strangely alone. Guilt tied itself to him. Hell, he'd never felt worse in his life. But he knew he would have done the same thing again if it came down to it. He was too selfish to let Stiles go. He always would be.

With his mom admitted in a hospital out of town, they were unable to treat Stiles' wounds properly, although Deaton did the best he could. They seemed to be healing slower this time, which gave the emissary more time to prepare another dose of his signature fox poison. Meanwhile, they could only hope and pray that if Stiles woke up before it was concocted, he would wake up as himself.

They knew they couldn't try another exorcism for they had no idea what it might do to Stiles. Also with a gaping wound still residing beneath his bandages, it was likely that expelling the Nogitsune at this point in time would end up killing him anyway. So for now, all Scott could do was wait and take what pain he could while everyone else caught up on much needed sleep. When the burden became too much, the guilt only got worse. He felt so helpless; inadequate to be this person's friend at all.

Unable to do anything else, Scott let the sound of Stiles' breathing sooth him. He didn't ever want to lose that sound again, or the comforting steady heartbeat, thoroughly alive. His eyes drifted to a spot on his wall and they didn't move for some time. A few hours later dawn was beginning to break.

Scott then heard the peaceful regularity of Stiles' body falter beside him. The eyes of his brother fluttered open and his face creased with pain.

"Stiles, tell me that's you."

Stiles jumped slightly when he became aware of the werewolf sitting next to him.

"You're alive?" were the first words Scott heard. Stiles' voice was ravaged with exhaustion and fear.

Scott stared at him in confusion.

"Of course I am."

He put his hand on Stiles' arm in an attempt to take at least a little more of his pain. For once Stiles didn't protest.

"What happened? Did I hurt anyone else?" he asked, pushing himself up into a sitting position and wincing with the extensive amount of effort it took.

"Stiles, you've been passed out since the school. You haven't even moved. How could you possibly have hurt anyone?"

Stiles looked utterly confused.

"What's wrong?" asked Scott. It was a stupid question considering the mountain of things that were wrong right now.

Stiles' eyebrows furrowed.

"He's in my head again." He said, voice anything but assured. "He can make me see whatever he wants. Scott, I could even be dreaming right now. He's probably got me trapped here in this stupid fantasy while he's out there murdering everyone I care about."

"Except this is real." Said Scott unwaveringly. "So you should be lying down and resting until Deaton gets back. He won't be long."

"I shouldn't be resting," said Stiles. "I should be dead."

Scott sighed. It was too much to bear, seeing his best friend like this, so ready to give up on himself. He just wanted everything to go back to the way it was. He would trade his wolf in a second for Stiles' happiness and the sight of Alison alive and smiling like she used to. But by now, that reality seemed like a whole world away.

"If our roles were reversed, what would you have done?" he said looking at his brother forlornly.

Stiles didn't answer.

At that moment the door opened and Lydia rushed in, holding a syringe tightly in her hand.

"You have it?" asked Scott eagerly.

Lydia nodded and then smiled sadly when she realised that Stiles was awake.

"Scott, do you mind if I talk to him alone?"

Scott completely understood. After all, he wasn't the only one that had just watched Stiles practically die. He'd spent the last few hours reassuring himself that death hadn't been permanent. Now it was Lydia's turn.

Trying to avoid being as selfish as he wanted to be, Scott agreed to go downstairs. Before he stood up however, he turned to Stiles, sending all the confidence he had left to his body language and voice.

"Stiles, you're gonna be okay." He said. "We'll work something out. We always do."

Stiles gave a half hearted smile. They were just words, and Scott knew it. But in his own head they held truth. They were going to win. And there was no alternative to that. There never would be.

So with that in mind, he got up and left the room.

* * *

Stiles managed to slowly shuffle himself onto the edge of the bed, but it wasn't without clutching his stomach and grunting in pain along the way. It hurt Lydia just to look at him. All she could see was a lifeless body lying in her arms. The body of a boy who had left her all alone.

Lydia perched herself down next to him, the syringe still in her hand.

"Stiles, if you ever do that again, I swear to God I will kill you."

Lydia didn't mean for the words to come out so shaken and serious.

"Noted." Replied Stiles.

A silence came across the two of them, for neither one knew what to say.

It didn't matter, for Lydia had her hand on Stiles' and it was real. Underneath the skin, blood was moving. In his chest, a heart was beating. And that was all that mattered.

Lydia cleared her throat.

"I guess I'm supposed to poison you now." She said nervously.

Stiles eyed the syringe and sighed.

"I've seen way too many needles lately."

He sounded feeble and weak, but most of all tired. Lydia felt tears prick her eyes. This wasn't fair. None of this was fair.

"I'm sorry." She said. "You can do it if it's easier?"

"No," said Stiles. "It's – it's better if someone else does it. I don't think I could." Stiles let out a spiteful laugh then. "I just got stabbed in the leg, nearly bled to death, stuck in a bear trap in my mind, and I'm still put off by a fricking needle."

Lydia's eyes widened.

"A bear trap?"

"Doesn't matter." Said Stiles quickly.

Lydia went quiet again.

Stiles turned to her and the corners of his lips turned up into a sad smile.

"I'm sorry." He said with another sigh. "Let's just get it over with. The quicker I know you're safe the better I'll feel."

Lydia returned his hopeful look.

"Count to three?" she said, holding the point of the needle to his upper arm.

Stiles nodded before his honey eyes met with hers, filled with an underlying melancholy that she knew she was sending right back.

"One...two..."

"Wait."

Stiles' hand shot up to surround Lydia's, holding it tightly in place before the needle could touch his skin. There was fear on his face.

"What is it?" asked Lydia, wincing because Stiles' grip was too tight. It was so tight it hurt.

That was when he changed.

Stiles' face dropped. His eyes went cold. His touch turned to ice.

"Come on Lydia, did you really think it would be that easy?"

Before Lydia could scream, his hand was wrapped around her throat. A moment later she was against a wall, unable to breathe, unable to think. His breath was on her skin. His eyes bored into her as she choked.

"You don't even make it a challenge." The voice was distant, spiralling in her head with an onslaught of dizziness. "You're all so quick to believe he's here. But little banshee, you should know something. Stiles is dead. He died on the bloodstained floor of a classroom. He died in your arms. Now it's my turn. And I'm going to enjoy every last bit of this."


	15. Chapter 15

Lydia felt the edges of her mind clouding over. Her toes only just brushed the carpet, but she couldn't feel it. A void of blackness was on the verge sweeping in, along with an overwhelming blaze of panic. The rushing of blood roared in her ears and stole her senses, leaving her clueless of whether Derek and Scott had tried to save her or not. If they had, the pressure never ceased. They had failed.

As her muscles became unresponsive, the syringe fell from her hand and landed silently on the carpet. A wave of darkness came over her as she fought to stay conscious. But strangely, along with it came an image. An image of a dark place. A place that seemed all too familiar. Stiles was there, injured and slumped against a wall, trapped. His body was limp. Tears rolled down his cheeks. His arms sagged by his sides. Lydia's heart sunk at the realisation that he had given up. He was gone.

The image disappeared as the blur of a spinning bedroom dragged her back to reality, back to the pain in her throat, the eager eyes of the Nogitsune only inches from her face.

"Almost there little banshee." Its voice was a thousand miles away, barely breaching the very edge of consciousness.

She knew what she'd seen. She'd been there before. Stiles' mind. His nightmare. She could almost see it in the Nogitsune's eyes, where Stiles remained behind them, concealed in an illusion. So as she felt the last of her strength slipping away, she clutched at that image. She held on to the fragments of Stiles that lay behind its face, focusing on pulling her end of the tether, drawing him out.

"Stiles."

Her voice was almost non-existent against the Nogitsune's grasp. A whisper. The Nogitsune raised his eyebrows giving Lydia a fraction of hope. If it could hear her, so could he.

"Stiles. It's time to wake up."

* * *

Each passing hour after the Nogitsune had disappeared felt like another lethal injection of hopelessness. Grief tore through Stiles' body, grief for himself. Grief for his friends that were probably already dead. At least the Nogitsune hadn't forced him to watch this time.

The darkness felt like it had swallowed him whole. He didn't even feel real anymore. Just a ghost. A ghost with the pain of a steal jaw trap stuck to its leg. It frustrated him because dead people weren't supposed to be able to feel pain.

He found himself concentrating on his mother's voice, even though at this point it seemed like the fading memory of a delusion.

_You're stronger than any of them in here._

_In here is where it really counts._

They were empty words said to make him feel better, formed from the depths of his own subconscious. He wasn't strong. Not in any sense of the word. And now everyone he loved was going to die because of it.

It was then that Stiles felt something he couldn't describe. Like a tug, but not in the literal sense. He felt panic, but not his own. The panic of someone else; their fear. Their emotions grasped and pulled at his own, converging with and contorting them until they merged into the same interwoven rope of sensation. He knew instantly that it was Lydia. She was dying.

With a new surge of alarm, the room around him seemed to falter. Not falter, but change. The details were missing, like a dream. Scuffs on the concrete ground; grooves in the walls disappeared. The complex knitting of colours became block like. The entirety of his surroundings somehow screamed false.

Something wrenched inside him as he felt somewhere, somewhere miles away, in a different universe in fact, someone was shaking him. Someone was shaking him awake.

_It's your head. Take control of it._

The words echoed as he looked down at the restraint upon his ankle. It hurt. But he knew the pain wasn't real. None of this was real. It never had been.

 _Lucid dreaming_.

He knew what the two words meant. They meant control. They meant the ability to manipulate. They meant he could get out.

Stiles closed his eyes tight. He still felt Lydia there, right beside him, practically shrieking as he felt the life slipping from her. He had seconds, if that. But he knew now. He knew what he had to do. He knew how to  _win_.

_Take control._

Stiles lifted his eyelids. And there she was. Green eyes gazed wildly back at him, successful in their mission of setting him free. So he did the same for her. She fell into him and he slowed her decent to the floor where they sat, the girl on the very edge of unconsciousness rested against him.

The bedroom window had been smashed. The door was hanging on one of its hinges. Stiles saw a hand appear against the window frame before the werewolf form of his best friend leaped through, ready to attack. Scott stopped at the sight of Lydia in his arms, breathing and alive. The werewolf's nose was bleeding, an injury Stiles had obviously caused. Guilt tore through him like a bullet. Derek rushed in through the broken door then holding the same aggressive posture that Scott did. A gash had appeared across his right eyebrow.

Nobody said anything.

Stiles looked at Lydia who stared back, slowly regaining her senses. Her gaze was intense, fearful as if to make sure it was really him. Her hand clutched bruises into his arm.

"I found you." She said with a rasp.

Stiles didn't hesitate. He lunged for the syringe containing the poison and shoved it into his own leg as quickly as he could. The pain that came with the injection was full of relief as he felt something evil being subdued within him. Part of him screamed in agony. The other part relished in the sensation of freedom.

A dizziness swept through him as the poison trickled through his system and for a few short seconds he had to try his best not to pass out. His hand trembled as the syringe fell from his fingers landing once more, now empty of its contents on the carpet.

He wrapped his arms around Lydia then, clutching her body against his chest.

"Lydia...I'm, I'm so sorry."

Lydia didn't reply, just held on tight. Stiles didn't feel deserving of her touch.

As if sensing that, she suddenly pushed herself away from him before stumbling to her feet. Her hand went to her throat, eyes focused on the door, and then she left the room, somehow looking both traumatised and calm all at once.

Stiles climbed up after watching her exit. His legs were like paper.  _He'd done that_. He'd hurt her – again. The remorse was borderline unendurable.

The second he was upright and relatively stable, Scott's arms were around him and pulling him into a tight hug, claws already retracted.

"Dude, you have to stop doing this."

Scott's voice was filled with relief.

Stiles pulled away and looked at him sullenly.

"Trust me. I know."

Scott smiled, but only slightly.

"You're okay, right?" he said. "You don't feel him anymore?"

Stiles let out an internal laugh of spite. He was everything but okay. He didn't think he'd ever really be 'okay' again. He nodded anyway, because now something felt different. Now he  _knew_  different.

"I know what I have to do." He said, and Scott's eyes widened.

"What do you mean?" said Derek, the bright blue of his own quickly fading. "You know how to stop it?"

"Maybe." Said Stiles. "But you have to promise to let me go through with it, alone. And if it doesn't work, which it might not, you have to promise to kill him; kill him no matter what happens to me, okay?"

He looked from Derek to Scott, whose hand was still on his arm. His voice was shaken but sure.

Scott didn't answer. Stiles knew that Scott would never be able to do what had to be done. Because he was right. If they were to switch places, he wouldn't either. But Derek. Maybe Derek just might.

"What is it?" said the former alpha, both concerned and insistent. "What do you have to do?"

Stiles sighed.

"First, I have to call my dad."

* * *

Lydia had listened to the phone call through the door to Melissa's bedroom even though it was meant to be private. There was an inherent sadness in Stiles' voice as he tried to comfort his father. He said the word 'love' more than once, and to Lydia's dismay, the longer it went on, the more it began to sound like a goodbye.

Towards the end of the call she began to feel like she couldn't take it anymore, so she escaped into Scott's room where she climbed onto the bed and curled up against the headboard, bringing her knees to her chest. The cold was thoroughly noticeable through the broken window where the Nogitsune had thrown Scott, but she didn't know where else to go. Solitude felt like the best thing for her right now, away from Scott and Derek who were in the lounge downstairs, politely respecting Stiles' wishes, unlike herself.

Five minutes later, the boy consuming her thoughts was standing in the doorway, looking forlorn and nervous. He knocked on the door that was still dangling and hanging wide open to which Lydia gave him a look of permission to enter.

She shuffled to the edge of the bed. Stiles sat down next to her uncertainly as if his very presence could damage her. Lydia couldn't ignore the grimace of pain that came across his face with the movement. His wounds still hadn't fully healed. It felt oddly like their roles from earlier had been reversed.

"If you've come to say goodbye to me too, I won't let you." she said, though the words came out filled with sadness.

Stiles shook his head slightly.

"Not goodbye." He said, staring at his hands. "I just have to tell you something."

Lydia stared at him, trying to suss him out. She almost laughed at herself because of the impossibility of it. Stiles was and always had been a walking, talking, living riddle.

"I'm all ears." She said quietly.

Stiles took a deep breath before his eyes connected with hers. For a moment, her breath was taken from her, but this time not in a wholly unpleasant way. It seemed like his whiskey eyes showed the entire spectrum of human emotion. They were utterly beautiful. And so was he. Stiles opened his mouth to speak and Lydia waited, patiently. His lips came together again and the breath he'd taken came out in a huge broken sigh.

"Stiles, what is it?"

"Lydia, I..."

He paused.

"Go on."

Silence.

"Stiles, you're the one who came in here, so if you're going to say something, come out and say it."

Stiles stared at her, and she felt as if the entirety of her soul was being analysed.

"Stiles, if you're not going to talk to me, I'd kind of like to be alone for a-"

"Lydia, I'm in love with you."

Stiles said the words quickly before his eyes broke away from hers in what looked like shame, but the separation was almost painful. "I always have been. I always will be. And I had to tell you, I had to tell you in case-"

"This sounds a hell of a lot like a goodbye to me."

Lydia's breath had hitched. Her eyes brewed and broke the disguise to her own denial.

"Shut up and let me talk." said Stiles, eyes reconnecting once more.

"I've hurt you," he said unwaveringly. "I know I have and I'll never forgive myself for that. But I had to tell you because otherwise I might never tell you. And I'd fricking hate myself even more if I did that. Because you have to know that - you have to know-"

"For God's sake Stiles I know."

In a rush of emotion, Lydia grabbed hold of the front of Stiles t-shirt and pulled him towards her fast. Her lips crashed against his roughly, a movement full of urgency and passion. Seconds passed before Stiles registered what was happening. The moment he did, he returned the kiss almost desperately. She felt his hands weave into her hair pulling her closer; felt his racing heartbeat that matched her own against the palm squashed between them. The pressure of his lips; his body against hers, they sent sparks bursting across her skin; her stomach twisted with a feeling she couldn't describe. The whole world seemed to disintegrate into nothing around her. Tragically perfect.

When they broke apart there were tears on Lydia's cheeks. She stared at him and her body reflected the emotions in his eyes. His face was surprised and heartbreaking and beautiful all at once.

"I thought this wasn't a goodbye."

Her words were quiet, close to a whisper.

Stiles' hand was still on her neck. And all he did was stare at her, as if he was looking at the most precious thing he'd ever laid eyes upon. He leant in and pressed one more kiss against her lips. It was the gentlest thing in the universe.

"Come on," he said, and though exhausted, his voice was suddenly touched with some kind of light; some kind of hope. He took her hand softly in his own. "Scott's waiting downstairs."

"Waiting for what?" asked Lydia, still reeling from her own emotions.

"For me," said Stiles. "I'm going back."

"Going back where?"

"Into my head. I'm going to find him. Then I'm going to end it. I'm going to end all of it."


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please don't hate me for this. I am heartless. But please hold on. It will get better, I promise. Please keep commenting though. Comment and comment s'more, it gives me motivation to update quicker. Thank you lovelies!

"You've got to be kidding me."

Scott sat forward on the sofa where Isaac had previously been resting with his hands pressed firmly together.

"Just do it Scott."

"Hell no."

Stiles still had his arm around Lydia who continued to insist upon supporting him. And although he was feeling significantly stronger since the Nogitsune had jumped back in, his wounds still throbbed and he was thankful for her help. On the other hand, the uncooperative response from his best friend was the last thing he needed, although it was nothing more than what he'd expected.

"If I could do it myself I would," he said, attempting to reason with the werewolf. "But I can't, so I need you to help me."

"Stiles, I'm not gonna knock you out. And there's no way you'll make me change my mind about that."

Stiles turned to Derek, who raised his eyebrows sceptically.

"I'm not getting involved in this."

After receiving the same sort of unwilling reaction from Isaac, Stiles began to feel the frustration rising up within him.

"I hope you all realise I'm trying to save your god damn lives here."

"Yeah, while ending your own in the process."

Scott's voice was stubborn, unyielding.

"And what's to say we don't end up right back where we started?" Isaac stepped forward. "What's to say you - the Nogitsune, doesn't kill us all the second you're under?"

"What's to say I don't kill you all anyway?" Stiles retorted, the tribulation bubbling away. "This poison lasted a grand total of about five minutes last time. I tried to fight back and someone I cared about nearly ended up with a hole in their head because of it."Glancing at Lydia, Stiles thought it best not to mention Malia's name. "You think I'll keep fighting if it means one of you ends up dead? Because I won't. And I won't ever need to. Not if you let me do this."

Scott shook his head, though his face was suddenly unreadable. Derek continued to stand, broody as ever, arms tightly folded.

"Oh come on" said Stiles, the frustration radiating from his very pores. "It's not like I actually want to do this. If anyone has a better idea, trust me, I'm right here listening."

There was no reply. Scott's head fell into his hands for a fraction of a second before he sat up again desperately trying to maintain his own self-possession.

"How do you know it'll work?" asked the alpha, and now genuine worry; fear shone through in his voice, scratching at the edges of his composure.

"I don't," Stiles replied truthfully "but we don't have any other options."

"We can wait." Suggested Derek, subsequently showing a similar kind of concern as the reality of the situation seemed to dawn upon the room.

"Wait for what?" asked Stiles, "If we do this later you might be forced to kill me anyway. I can't stay awake forever." He felt bad for asking his friend, for asking any of them to carry out such a thing, but all other opportunities had dwindled down to nothing, and his mother's voice was still present, dancing around his head in bursting rays of light. "You just have to trust me," he said, "I can do this. For my sake, please just help me."

"I'll do it."

Stiles was shocked to hear Lydia speak beside him. He looked down to her questioningly.

"I trust you." She said. "I'll do it."

"Lydia, you don't have to." Said Scott from the sofa, and the words came out a sigh.

"Scott I..."

"I trust you too Stiles." Scott interjected when Stiles began to protest. "My mom's a doctor. She'll have some sedative somewhere. If we're doing this, we're doing it right."

Scott was afraid. It was obvious. Stiles hated himself for even making the werewolf consider this. But he could feel something bad inside of him, abrading the underside of his skin; scuffing the edges of his mind. They were running out of time.

"Thank you." He said, because there was nothing else to say.

With the help of Derek, it didn't take long for Scott to find the correct vile amongst Melissa's array of supplies. Stiles refused to let them call Deaton who'd left almost immediately after dropping Lydia off. Stiles knew the man needed sleep, but mostly he just didn't want anyone else dissenting to his plan, however deplorable his plan might have been. Thankfully, Derek had insisted that from past experience he knew how to knock someone out safely using general anesthetic, and considering the mess that was the man's life, none of them questioned him on it. So now all five of them were standing back in the lounge. The needle in Derek's hand looked ominous, terrifying in fact.

The expression on Scott's face had gotten gradually more fearful, and now it was all Stiles could see. The fact that tonight might be the last one with both of them breathing weighed heavily on the room and etched itself all over his brother's face. Stiles didn't know what to say to make it okay. So instead he pulled him into another tight embrace.

"You've still got me." He said before pulling away. "That won't ever change."

"I know." Said Scott, and his eyes rolled up as if he was trying to prevent tears from falling.

Scott stepped back for Lydia who quickly wrapped her arms tightly around him. Stiles felt her comforting warmth against his body and didn't ever want to unravel from her grasp. She only broke away to plant a determined kiss upon his mouth, to which the other three werewolves were justifiably surprised. Stiles held her to him, felt her soft hands against his neck, smelt the sweet scent of her hair; traced her back with his palms. He was memorising her; memorising the moment, because chances were that this was the last time he would ever feel her so close, or feel anything at all.

"Please come back." He heard her say as her head landed upon his chest once more. Her voice was no more than a whisper.

And then they were apart and Derek was stepping toward him, needle in hand.

"Are you sure you know how to do this?" Stiles voice shook involuntarily.

"I know enough." Replied the werewolf. "It's either this or I just punch you really, really hard."

"I vote this." said Stiles.

"Are you sure it's what you want?" Derek asked as he took Stiles arm and held the needle to his skin. His face was full of worry and it didn't suit him. Stiles didn't know how to reply. Of course this wasn't what he wanted. He was terrified. His blood was running cold. But instead of voicing his emotions, Stiles simply nodded.

Less than a few seconds later, after the needle had been withdrawn, Stiles could feel the darkness closing in. It was an ever so familiar sensation and he stumbled backwards to find Scott's sofa before his legs gave out beneath him. He could barely feel Lydia's hand grasped tightly around his own or the press of fabric against his skin.

"Remember to call Kira." he gasped, but his voice was already a hundred miles away. "If I lose, she, she has the katana. You know... you know what to..."

His words slurred and faded out as the last remnants of his conscious mind disintegrated. Then, there was only black.

* * *

"Stiles, open your eyes. You did it, Stiles. You did it. It's over. You can wake up now."

Stiles woke what felt like hours later. Scott was staring down at him, distress written across his face. He felt Lydia's breath on his cheek from where she was crouched right next to him, pressing the back of his hand firmly to her lips.

He was still lying across the sofa in Scott's living room, not having moved an inch. Even though he could see the figures that inhabited his surroundings, he couldn't seem to focus. His mind was clouded over and dazed, still reeling from the effects of the drug. When his brain finally settled into reality, the whole room seemed to breathe a huge sigh of relief. Lydia's head fell so that her forehead was placed against the material of the couch right next to his. A grin as wide as the Earth stretched across Scott's face.

Stiles attempted to sit up but the immediate rush of dizziness forced his head back down onto a pillow that someone had kindly placed beneath him.

"What happened?"

His voice came out woozy and drunken.

Scott smiled poignantly down at him.

"You won, Stiles. You won."

Stiles frowned and tried to lift his hand to rub a head that felt intensely sore. He found himself paralysed, like his brain was awake but his body wasn't. He chose initially not to question it, blaming it on the anesthetic. Peering around the room, he saw that nothing had changed. Derek and Isaac still stood a few steps back, watching intently, but now relief washed across their features too.

"But how?"

Stiles was confused. His memories evaded him leaving him only with the recollection of an empty sleep, void of anything at all. No nightmares. No Nogitsune. Nothing.

"You don't remember?" asked Lydia, now having lifted her head to gaze at him with wide eyes the colour of rainforests. Both her hands were clasped around one of his. And it was only then that he realised he couldn't feel them. He couldn't feel the pressure of her silk skin against his own. In fact, he could barely feel anything. The pain in his stomach and leg had vanished. He couldn't even sense the friction of his clothes upon his body. Stiles began to panic. Again he tried to move, sit up,  _anything_ , but his body remained stagnant, unwilling. The faces in the room turned to frowns around him.

"Kanima venom." said Scott. "Dude, we had to make sure."

At the realisation, Stiles felt himself relax.  _Of course,_ he thought. If he'd lost, if he'd woken up a killer again, they needed to be prepared. It seemed obvious now. But despite the revelation, Stiles remained in a state of confusion. He hadn't  _done_  anything. He hadn't  _won_  or  _lost_. He waited seconds for the anaesthetic to wear off and leave his memories clear, but his own mind remained unfathomable. There was only blackness.

As he realised that his apparent victory wasn't ever going to return to him, the uneasy sensation within him intensified tenfold.

"Stiles, what's wrong?" asked Lydia worriedly. "You did it Stiles. You don't have to be afraid anymore."

Stiles stared at her, and her words did nothing to settle the blazing unrest.

"Lydia, I didn't  _do_  anything."

"And you never will."

At that moment fire and terror rained down upon the room in a series of equally earth shattering events. A voice. A voice that belonged to no human, banshee or werewolf. A blade, a katana plunged through his brother's chest. Black blood trickled from his brothers lips. A werewolf's wide lifeless eyes stared down at him. A banshee's brutal scream ripped the world in two. As the blade pulled out, Scott's corpse dropped. Its fall to the afterlife seemed to last a lifetime. Stiles didn't even hear it hit the floor.

His breath had gone. He choked. The sight of his dead best friend leaking blood onto the carpet tore the life right out of him. His own figure, the figure of the Nogitsune stood above him, katana in hand, smiling.

"Oh don't look so shocked, Stiles. This was inevitable after all."


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I DON'T KNOW ABOUT THIS CHAPTER. IS IT OOC. IS IT BADLY WRITTEN. HMMM I JUST DON'T KNOW. Have it anyway my pretties.

Stiles wanted to scream, to wretch, to cry until his body gave out. But the paralysis suddenly seemed to extend from his body to his mind. All he could do was stare wide eyed at the motionless figure on the ground, disbelieving.

He didn't notice that none of the others had moved. There wasn't a single cry of anguish. No attack on the Nogitsune. There wasn't even a change of expression. If Stiles had taken the chance to look around, he would have been confused by their absurd responses to the death of their friend. He would have also noticed the extra fingers upon the ivory hand that held onto his own, or the unreadable nonsense that scribbled itself across the calendar on the wall. But through his pain, he saw none of it, only death.

The Nogitsune stepped forward before perching itself on the edge of the couch next to his immobile body. It was only then that he realised Lydia was no longer beside him. Isaac and Derek were equally non-existent. The change in his surroundings should have told him the truth. It should have screamed it at him. But the confusion only combined itself with his sorrow. He saw the blood staining the blade that the Nogitsune spun in its hand, Scott's blood. And the rest of the world was irrelevant.

"This is going to get awful boring if you're just going to lay there like a vegetable, Stiles. You do realise I just killed your best friend. I expected more of a reaction from you."

Stiles blinked. Blinked again. The way that someone would when trying to wake themselves from a nightmare or a dream. A dream. Stiles looked at the corpse on the floor, and only then did he see the artificial aura that filled and surrounded it, as if it had been painted with intricate brush strokes. It wasn't real. It wasn't real.  _It wasn't real._

"I see you're catching on, Stiles. It took you long enough."

Stiles eyes flashed back to the Nogitsune, tears of relief and fear and grief trailing down his face.

"I know what you're trying to do by coming back in here." The Nogitsune's voice was quiet and disconcerting. "You think you have control. You think breaking out of one little bear trap makes you stronger than me. But your  _mine_ , Stiles. I have the power in here, out there, everywhere. I hope you understand that now."

Stiles shook with fear. And it took him several seconds to realise that such a thing should have been impossible. The kanima venom still poured through his system. He shouldn't have been able to shake or move  _at all_. But this was in his head. The paralysis was in his head. It was a figment. A falsity. At the realisation, he lifted his hand, staring at the fingers as he flexed them, forming a fist, feeling the muscles work on his own accord.

The Nogitsune looked down at him. A frown emerged on its face.

"How are you doing that?"

Stiles looked back, meeting its gaze. Though tears still fell and a state of shock still clutched at his bones, Stiles' eyes were determined.

The Nogitsune stood up and stepped backwards as Stiles began to move. Eventually he felt the ground beneath his feet as he heaved himself upright. He stood face to face with a monster, a monster that still held the katana firmly in its grasp. Its expression was suddenly tainted with annoyance.

"It looks like you're stronger than I thought." It said, voice twisted yet still unsettlingly calm.

Each breath Stiles took tore and trembled. A glance to the image of his brother on the ground stabbed at his chest. But he knew what to do. Stiles closed his eyes tight and when he opened them, Scott's body was gone, as was the blood soaking into the carpet. All traces of his contrived death had vanished, leaving only the painful memory of a vision.

At the sight of Stiles' actions, the Nogitsune raised its eyebrows.

"I'm impressed, Stiles." It said, tilting its head. "What exactly do you plan to do with this new found talent of yours?"

"I plan to kill you."

The Nogitsune let out a short barbed laugh.

"I hope you realise that's impossible."

"Not in  _my_  mind." said Stiles, the horror of what he'd seen flickering through in his voice. "This is  _my_  mind after all."

"Haven't we already discussed this, Stiles? It belongs to  _me_  now."

The Nogitsune walked forward too quickly. Seconds later its face was only inches from his own. Stiles could feel its icy breath tingling in the wetness of the tear tracks that remained on his cheeks. He tried his best not to flinch.

"It looks like that's something I'll just have to prove to you."

When a fist collided with his stomach, Stiles crumpled in pain. And then suddenly a too strong hand was winding itself around the neck of his t-shirt, tugging. Unable to find his feet, he found himself being heaved towards the nearest door.

Stiles wasn't prepared for the impact. The Nogitsune tossed him, its strength inhuman. The door gave way under his weight and he landed in a heap on hard foreign ground, winded and disorientated. The bright white light was immediately blinding, causing his senses to scatter about him like flies. When he finally gathered them up, he became immediately aware that he was no longer in Scott's house. Now, white was everywhere. An entire cavern of it.

The white room.

Stiles struggled onto his elbows, then his palms, then lifted a knee in an attempt to regain stability, but the impact of a foot against his side sent him right back down again, coughing and gasping for air.

"I know what you came here to do, Stiles."

The Nogitsune loomed over him, dragging the tip of the katana along the tiled floor. Stiles tried to crawl away but struggled to make his limbs cooperate.

"You planned for only one of us to remain after this, didn't you?"

Another kick sent him sprawling.

"You thought a spirit could be destroyed with the power of the mind."

With a grunt, Stiles rolled onto his back, clutching at his side, breathing hard. The Nogitsune looked down at him pitifully.

"And you thought right, Stiles. Only one of us will remain. But it's not going to be you."

The Nogitsune raised the katana in its hand, ran its fingers along the flat edge of the blade; watched bright red blood transfer to its skin in transfixion. Then its eyes returned to Stiles' weak figure. A coy smile touched its white lips.

"But you need me." Stiles exclaimed, though his voice was too quiet, as if it was being suppressed by some kind of unknown force. The Nogitsune's eyes only sparked with triumph.

"I need your body." It said as Stiles attempted to regain his composure, get up from the floor,  _anything_. "Your  _spirit_  on the other hand, is merely an inconvenience. Now that you've let me in, it's disposable."

Stiles heart sped as he felt the tip of the katana being placed gently against the centre of his chest. The Nogitsune crouched down next to him as he struggled to keep its terrorizing gaze. The pressure of the sword increased. It might have broken skin.

"I hope you realise it's nothing personal, Stiles. I really will miss your company."

In a rush of panic and adrenaline, Stiles grabbed hold of the already bloodied blade and wrenched as hard as he could, tossing it to the side. He'd expected it to cut him, and badly, but somehow his hand remained pale and undamaged. He didn't even hear the clatter of the sword hitting the ground. Instead it seemed to dematerialise; vanish as if it had never been there at all. Though it wasn't something Stiles registered as he was already scrambling to his feet and running. He didn't know where. He didn't even know why. All he could think of was survival. He needed time. Time to figure out a way to turn the tables. Time to figure out how to win.

Stiles tripped. He fell forward onto a rough, familiar surface.

The Nemeton.

The tree stump seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. He managed to heave himself back onto one foot before something powerful struck him across the back. A cry left his lips as he crashed once again into the hard wood, grazing his palms on impact. He managed to crawl to the centre of the stump before concrete hands were tugging him onto his back. A weight bore down upon him, forcing the air from his lungs. And then the same hands were around his throat, squeezing.

"It's kind of poetic, isn't it? You'll die in the same place you saved my life."

Stiles was going to die. And for real this time. He choked. He struggled. He pressed his palms into the stronger figures chest. He clawed desperately at its hands and arms. But his efforts were useless. The room around him began to flicker, like a faulty torch. And then the white started to degrade and crumble into grey, then black. He could only think of Lydia, of Scott, of his dad. Of how he'd failed them.

And then it hit him. Acceptance. A lack of oxygen perhaps, told him kindly that the nightmare was about to end. Stiles shut his eyes. For the first time in what felt like years, he could finally sleep. And for a while he welcomed it, until he heard her voice. Lydia's voice. Somewhere in another waking world, she was holding his hand. Scott was there too. They were waiting for him to wake up. Waiting for him to come back.  _If only he could_.

* * *

"Scott, this doesn't feel right."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I think he's dying."

"What?"

"He's dying. Scott, we have to do something. We have to help him."

Lydia stared down at the sleeping boy sprawled across the sofa. She hadn't let go of his hand even once. She could see his eyes performing short jagged movements behind the lids. And despite the kanima venom that Derek had suggested, his hand kept tightening around hers. Occasionally his nails would dig into her skin, but she barely noticed the pain. Perspiration formed a glistening sheen across his forehead. His eyebrows were turned inward in a permanent look of confusion or pain. But it wasn't anything physical that bothered her. She could feel him slipping. Stiles, everything that made him  _him_. She could feel him crumbling away. And soon he would be gone. Soon she would scream and their tether would break. A feeling worse than death.

Lydia felt Scott's hand beside hers as he crouched down to join her in clutching on to Stiles, willing him to hold on. She looked at the werewolf and all she could see was fear. But she was sure he could see exactly the same in her.

"Can't we wake him?" asked Scott, and his voice ached for the pain of his brother.

Lydia shook her head.

"Not until the anaesthetic wears off. But Scott, we don't have time for that. We don't have any time at all. We have to save him."

Lydia could tell that Scott knew what she meant. But his eyes flickered back to Stiles and his grip on him only tightened.

"I promised to let him do it alone."

A single tear rolled from the inner corner of the werewolf's eye.

"Scott, you're a true alpha." Derek's voice was urgent and heavy. "Who the hell cares what Stiles asked you to do. He's your pack. So save him."

Scott looked up at Derek whose face was stern but panicked. Lydia watched as he wiped the tear from his cheek, then jumped as nails turned into claws upon his fingers, an indication of his decision.

"Thank you." She said, for she knew it was the right thing, if not the  _only_  thing to do. "Quick."

She wasted no time hoisting Stiles' body up into some kind of sitting position. His head lolled backwards, still deep in an inescapable nightmare. And it was only then that she felt a stab at her chest and something tighten around her throat. Somewhere in another existence, she was choking,  _Stiles_  was choking.

"Now," she gasped, feeling her senses explode. "Scott, now!"

She shoved herself down besides Stiles barely having time to entwine her fingers with his before Scott's claws pierced the back of her neck. A mixture of pain and something else sent the entire world spiralling around her. She blinked. And then the pain was gone. For a second there was only white. It engulfed her; filled up her very being. It remained that way for what seemed like a lifetime, but then the outline of a magnificent tree stump materialised somewhere in the distance. Soon after, a figure formed on top of it, two figures in fact. Two figures that looked exactly the same. One of them lay beneath the other, its struggles slowly beginning to wane under the other's weight.

Lydia felt it. She felt him giving up. She felt the life starting to slip from him, and along with it she felt her own spirit shake.

"Scott, save him!"

But the werewolf was already running. He reached the Nemeton before Lydia had even taken a few steps. She watched him lunge forward, slamming his weight into the body on top of Stiles. He and the Nogitsune toppled from the tree stump, and then it was blur of anger and desperation. Claws tearing skin. Hands snapping bone. But Lydia didn't see the action. There was only Stiles.

There he lay, too still against the wood of the Nemeton. She didn't know if he was breathing. She didn't even know if his heart was still beating. But he was alive. He was alive and that was all that mattered.

Ignoring the sound of a werewolf's howl of pain, Lydia ran. She ran until her legs ached. When she reached the Nemeton, she climbed up onto it and collapsed beside the boy who lay there. She took his face in her hands, saw his eyelids flutter open, felt the rise and fall of his chest. Despite his present vulnerability making her want to clutch him to her chest and never let go, relief swept through her and swelled as the previous painful strain of their tether settled.

"Lydia, what are you doing here?" his words came out a quiet rasp.

She gazed down at the boy and smiled. She smiled because maybe it was the one thing that would make him feel better; that would make him keep fighting.

"We're saving your life."


	18. Chapter 18

Stiles felt utterly dazed.

His head span. It hurt to breathe. But Lydia's arms were already pulling at him, inclining him to move. She hooked her hand under his bicep and tugged, dragging him roughly into a sitting position. For a second he lost all sense of where he was and what was happening, his body weighted by an intense bewildering stupor.

It was the combination of Lydia's fierce gaze and the sound of bodies clashing together that forced his mental faculties back in through the pounding wall of his skull. He stared at the girl on her knees before him and suddenly felt childlike in comparison. Her face was afraid but determined, whereas he felt only the prior.

"Stiles, I need you to focus for me, okay?"

Stiles was breathing hard. He must've looked pretty bad, meaning the 'on the verge of a panic attack' kind of bad. But that wasn't something he thought about for a sharp grunt of pain to his right had his head snapping round to where his brother and the Nogitsune were fighting.

The sight of Scott alive instantly had his heart soaring, but it was an elation quickly replaced again by the same unfaltering fear for the life of someone he loved.

Scott's eyes were bright red. His ears were pointed. His teeth were elongated and sharp. He was throwing punches, slashing with claws, and several of his strikes were making contact. But it was far from a level fight. The Nogitsune was winning. Stiles could see it in the way that Scott's movements were becoming increasingly laboured and weak.

"You need to go."

Stiles stared at Lydia, angry at the fact that they were in his mind against his wishes; thankful for it also. And at the same time he was too disorientated to even contemplate his own emotions.

"No way." Said Lydia, and her voice was as stubborn as ever. "Stiles, why did you come here? It's because you knew you could beat him. And I know you can too."

Stiles shook his head before flicking to his brother in panic when he saw him hunch over from a particularly powerful blow.

"Lydia, I was wrong. I can't do this." He panted. "You have to go. You have to go  _now_. Both of you. You can wake up. You have to wake up.  _Please_ , Lydia."

Then Lydia's hands were back on either side of his face, holding him still. Her eyes; the Hellenic ideal of her face - they weren't enough to distract him from the fact that his brother was losing a fight only metres away. He didn't know what would happen if Scott were to die here, but he didn't ever want to find out.

"Stiles, look at me." Said Lydia, and he was forced to stare deep into her harsh and stricken eyes. There was an almost dictatorial look there now; Stiles felt implored by her to slow his breathing; to calm himself. It astounded him how composed she was.

"It's  _your_  head." She said. Her voice reverberated through his mind and etched itself into his memory. "So take control of it."

Another terrible sound of pain had them both turning back to the action. Stiles' heart dropped at what he saw. Scott was bleeding, having been cut gruesomely across his thigh. The werewolf stumbled backwards before ducking to avoid the Nogitsune's next swing. To Stiles' horror, somehow the katana was back in its possession. The sword made contact again and Scott dropped to his knees, his face scrunched up in agony. The fox spirit raised its weapon again, ready to strike one final fatal blow.

Stiles thought time had stopped. Maybe it had.

Still dizzy, he dived to his feet in a rush of panic and ran. He couldn't watch his best friend die. Not again. Not now. Ducking down, his shoulder struck the Nogitsune at full force. He wrapped his arms around its torso and kept pushing.

Caught by surprise, the lookalike lost its balance and the two of them tumbled to the ground hard.

"Stiles, no!" Scott cried.

Stiles didn't hear the werewolf however, for suddenly there were hands grasping bruises into his shoulders. He felt himself being lifted, then with all the force of a hurricane, slammed back down into the cold tiles. His very bones shook on impact as shock wracked through his entire body. Then the Nogitsune was once again standing above him, frighteningly serious. The katana was still hanging in its hand.

It happened before he could even comprehend it, let alone move out the way. The sword came crashing down, straight into his chest.

He heard Scott yell a sound of absolute terror. Then werewolf claws were plunging into the Nogitsune's body before it was dragged away with a rage-filled blast of new found power. The katana left his chest before being thrown down beside him, coated with his own blood. He wondered if he was still breathing. He didn't think so.

Stiles stared down at where red was starting to seep through his white t-shirt, looking harsh and abnormal in contrast to its surroundings. There was no pain. Strangely, he couldn't feel anything at all.

"Stiles!"

Lydia's face came into view then. She looked like some sort of strawberry blonde angel. He tried to speak to her, to comfort her, but nothing came out. It was rather frustrating.

"Stiles, can you hear me?"

Her voice was far away, but he nodded, not sure if the action had actually transferred from his brain to his body.

"It's not real, Stiles. It's not real. You can make it go away." She was crying while she spoke. She was so beautiful when she cried.

"Stiles, make it go away!"

Lydia's words made no sense to him. The dream was becoming vaguer; less like reality. Exactly like a dream  _should_  be.

With great effort, Stiles turned his head to see the katana laying not two metres away. He tried to reach out to it but his body wouldn't allow him movement. Again, very frustrating. He was reminded of being paralysed by kanima venom, then by the debilitating nature of the steel jaw trap.

Steal jaw trap. Kanima venom. Katana. All these things were pulled straight from the foundations of his own memories, only to be used against him without his permission. But still, they were  _his_ memories. Not anyone else's. Not the Nogitsune's.  _His._

_Take control._

Suddenly, Stiles understood.

He couldn't be killed by a memory.

Stiles looked down and the blood was gone. There was no rip in his t-shirt, no wound, nothing. He deleted the memory as if it had never been there at all. Because it hadn't.

Lydia's hands immediately went to his chest, searching for what didn't exist in awe and confusion, but then she understood too.

Stiles sat up. Breathed in. Breathed out.

"You're okay?" she asked, probably unconscious of the fact that her hand still lay firmly over his heart.

"Yeah," Stiles replied, and somehow he believed it this time. "But Scott's not."

He barely glanced at his brother before he was diving for the katana. He suddenly felt stronger, as if all the bruises the Nogitsune had left upon his skin were no longer there, because they weren't. At least the physical ones anyway.

He felt the handle; a concrete weight in his palm. Here he held his own memory; a sliver of his own mind. And it was solid. It was solid because it belonged to him. It was his own possession, something that the Nogitsune could never truly have custody of.

Lydia stared at him, and her expression changed. Though fear was still lying in the lines of her lips and eyes, now blossomed in her understanding, faith, hope. She glanced from the katana to his face, a look that filled him with some kind of strange power he couldn't explain.

"Go." She said. And it was all he needed to climb to his feet and run.

The sight of Stiles being stabbed seemed to have sparked something within Scott. Something powerful and terrifying. Thankfully it had given him the strength he needed to weaken the Nogitsune and their fight had somewhat evened out. However the realisation that Stiles was okay had the werewolf distracted, allowing the Nogitsune to plant a devastating blow against Scott's chest. Stiles watched his brother's legs give out as he fell to the ground gasping for breath. Maybe ribs had been broken. Maybe worse.

But it didn't matter because Stiles was already there.

He held the sword tight and struck forward, praying that it would do its job. But the Nogitsune span round. Its hand wrapped around the blade halting its movement, the tip only centimetres from its chest.

Then Scott was up from the ground and his teeth were biting down hard upon its upper arm.

The Nogitsune let out a horrific strangled scream full of raging abomination.

Then the scream stopped, cut silent when it looked down to find tip of the katana had disappeared. Instead it laid eyes upon Stiles' hand, wrapped around the hilt of the sword, the sword that went straight through its heart.

Stiles saw its eyes widen in disbelief, then let go as the Nogitsune dropped to its knees. Its hands went to the swords handle. It clutched at the realness of it, shaking with the confusion it never thought it would feel. Stiles watched as it tried to pull the blade out. He continued to do so while it stared in bewilderment at how its fingers went slack.

Its face was a picture of amazement when their eyes connected.

"How?"

Its voice was too innocent to be coming from such a twisted creature. But Stiles didn't care. He thought about Allison when he stared back. He thought about his friends and the absolute hell they'd been through. He thought about the way their lives would never be the same. How there would always be a fragment of darkness somewhere behind his eyes whenever he looked in the mirror; some kind of evil that no amount of time could wash away. And all he felt was hate.

Out of his control, he watched his own hand wrap around the handle once more, and he stared into the Nogitsune's eyes with a confidence he'd never possessed before. A confidence brewed from the tornado of hatred and disgust that twisted within him

"I'm taking control."

With a twist and tug, Stiles removed the sword. The Nogitsune's eyes went vacant in the clutches of death. And finally, it fell.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OHmalooord canny believe it's finished. wowzer. I might be making a part 2 so subscribe n tings if that's what you're feeling. THANKYOUUUUUU

Lydia gasped as her conscious mind stumbled back into Scott's living room.

It was too fast. Too violent. It left her reeling.

She felt Scott's claws withdraw from her neck, then noticed Derek, Isaac and now Kira standing before them, the very definition of worry. Kira was holding the katana. The sight of it made her cringe.

"Is it over?" the kitsune asked nervously.

Lydia didn't answer because the sound of choking and spluttering beside her had her spinning to face Stiles. For a second she expected to see him gagging on bandages, dragging them right back to where they started. But as she placed her hand upon his back, a cough wracked through his body and something fell from his lips.

It was a fly.

Stiles heaved in a breath and collapsed back into the sofa as the tiny creature fell to the carpet, barely moving. Its wings were broken and bent. It tried to use them as it lived out its last few moments of life, but all it could do was stir in a gruellingly slow manner. Lydia saw one of the fractured things twitch, but then there was only Isaac's foot as it came down hard, finalising the things imminent death.

"It is now." Said the werewolf.

Lydia had seen way too much to be grossed out by the sight of the flattened bug. After a couple of seconds, the tiny monster transformed into a burst of black smoke to which the air quickly consumed. Eventually, only a memory remained.

In a way she felt glad that Isaac had been the one to end it. She was glad that he'd been able to have some kind of closure over Allison's death. He'd loved her after all. He still  _did_  love her. But that thought vanished when she turned back to Stiles, who looked the epitome of exhausted. She immediately fell into him; wrapped her arms around him; felt his own arms enclose her. For the first time in what seemed like forever, there was warmth there. Real human warmth. She basked in how wondrous it was; in the fact that he was here, alive. Stiles was  _okay_.

His arms tightened around her before he was pulling away in a hurry. Then suddenly he was scrambling to his feet and running into Scott who'd already made his way from behind the sofa. Stiles grabbed him and dragged him into a firm hug that had the other boy jumping with surprise, but then his arms landed across Stiles' back as he returned the embrace.

"I saw you die, Scott."

Stiles' words had Lydia confused, scared even. But then Scott let out a short laugh as the hug was half broken apart, held in place with each of their arms still clutching onto the other's.

"Right back at you, dude. Twice." He said. Then they were embracing again and Lydia relaxed. She actually  _relaxed._  She couldn't remember the last time she had.

Their hug was halted by the sound of Derek clearing his throat.

"So the Nogitsune's dead? That's it? We're all okay?" he said as the two of them turned to face him.

 _Not all of us_ , thought Lydia, and she knew the others were thinking it too. Scott smiled anyway, but only very slightly.

"We're all okay." He affirmed, glancing at each person in the room momentarily as if to check that what he was saying was actually true. His eyes landed on Kira who quickly averted her gaze, staring at the ground instead. Lydia was too preoccupied to feel sorry for the girl, even though she knew how hard it must be for her. She probably felt like some kind of intruder. But frankly, Lydia was too tired to care. She'd barely slept in days. Not since the death of her best friend. She imagined any sleep would be plagued with nightmares of Allison's body, nightmares of Stiles'. But in a sense, she was ready for that.

Lydia stood up. She swayed. Then her knees buckled.

It was Stiles that caught her before she fell.

"You're exhausted." He said, and she really was. But so was he. "I should take you home."

"We need to be in the same place tonight." Said Scott, once again the authority of an alpha shining through in his voice. "You both should stay here." He looked to Stiles. "I'll ring my mom and tell her to let your dad know that everything's okay."

Lydia saw Stiles' eyes widen slightly at the mention of the sheriff. The last time they'd spoken, it had practically been Stiles' swan song. His dad was probably already on his way back from whatever hospital he'd been admitted in, driving at ninety miles an hour down the motorway to prevent his son from offing himself. Stiles hand went to his neck, where he rubbed anxiously. He kept one arm around Lydia, forever supporting her in every way possible.

"I, uh, I should probably be the one to call him." He said.

Scott sighed.

"Stiles, just get some sleep. Some  _real_ sleep. Please."

"But what about you?"

"Lydia can have my mom's bed. You can have mine. I'll sleep in the chair. I can't leave you and Lydia alone."

Lydia knew why. So did Stiles. Last time they'd been alone together she'd nearly been strangled to death. The Nogitsune was a trickster. She wanted to scream at the thought that this might all just be another illusion. But then a feeling deep down in the pit of her stomach told her otherwise. Stiles was himself. She knew it. Whether it be their connection telling her that, or just plain and hopeful naivety, she'd never been so certain of anything in her life.

"I really should talk to my dad." Said Stiles, but then Isaac stepped forward.

"Scott's right." He said. "You look like death. Still smell like it too. Both of you. You should sleep."

"Always with the compliments." Stiles retorted, even though Lydia could tell that he knew the beta spoke truth. After Stiles said it, even though he hadn't meant it harshly, she could see the guilt play out across his features, tearing him up from the inside.

She reached out to him; brought her hand up to his face; inclined him to look at her.

"Let's go to sleep." She said, because she knew he would listen to her. She was Lydia Martin after all.

Stiles raised his hand until it was placed on top of hers. Their fingers wove together as he leaned into her touch.

"Okay." He said, exactly like she knew he would.

* * *

The truth was Stiles didn't think he would ever sleep again.

Yes, it was over. Yes, he was no longer possessed. And the relief was overwhelming. But as he lay on Scott's bed staring at the ceiling, the quiet awoke something sour and vile within his mind. It extended onto his body, twisting in his stomach, making him feel sick. And despite that, the most prominent thing was the fear. The fear that the second he closed his eyes, a bear trap would appear on his leg, or maybe he'd be stuck in a locker, and right there would be the Nogitsune, laughing at him because he'd allowed himself to fall for a contrived semblance of safety.

He held up his hands in the dim light and counted his fingers slowly, then repeated; repeated again. He found that he couldn't stop, even though each and every time the number remained the same. There were ten. Always ten.

"Hey buddy."

It was Scott.

"Your dad's okay. He's on his way back. I told him you were here."

Stiles dropped his hands. He could tell Scott had seen what he'd been doing. He could only be thankful that the werewolf didn't mention it.

"Isaac, Derek and Kira left. I told them you'd be okay. You think you will be?"

Stiles took a deep breath, not sure how to answer. He settled on simply nodding.

Scott sat down in the chair that lay across the room. Stiles could feel his concerned gaze boring into him. He kept his eyes on the ceiling, trying to control both his breathing and heart rate for the fear and remorse that still coursed through him.

_It's over._

Those were the two words he kept repeating inside. Though he knew that in reality, if it really  _was_  reality, that it would never truly be over. The Nogitsune had left them with a hole the size of Saturn, and the only way Stiles seemed to be able to fill it was with hatred and grief.

He glanced to Scott who thankfully was no longer looking at him. His friends' eyes had drifted onto a photo frame that lay on his desk across the room. Stood in the picture was a werewolf, a banshee and a hunter. Though here they were happy. Scott and Allison had still been together, and their arms were around each other as they laughed. Beside them, Lydia was in the middle of rolling her eyes, obviously not too pleased about third wheeling. Stiles remembered taking it with Scott's camera, though he couldn't recall exactly what they'd been doing or even what day it had been. But he knew it had been a perfectly normal one, a perfectly  _boring_  one. Now boring was something he only wished for.

Stiles noticed tears on Scott's cheeks as he looked at the photograph, and it only caused the sickly feeling inside of him to grow. But less than ten minutes later, despite the morning light that shone in through the still broken window, his brother was very much asleep.

Stiles prayed for the werewolf's dreams to be peaceful and kind.

For he knew his own would be the opposite.

* * *

Five days later.

Lydia was angry. Furious in fact.

It was late evening. About nine. The sky was black and the stars were vivid. She was in her car driving beyond the speed limit, though she hardly noticed. The GPS was switched off for she knew exactly where she was going. The image was tattooed into her mind. First it was his house. Then it was only him. He was staring at her with that inhumane gaze that didn't belong to him. But then his eyes returned to the considerate honey oceans that she'd only so recently noticed. Then she saw him lying on the floor of a classroom so close to death. Then he was kissing her sweetly, and she could almost feel the touch of his lips against her own while she drove. All of it only fuelled her rage.

It wasn't long before she arrived outside his house, breathing hard.

Lydia parked and quickly got out, trying to ignore the reflection that flashed in the rear-view mirror. The amount of makeup she had on felt disrespectful; it didn't make her feel stronger like she'd thought it would. But it was too late to change that now.

It was Sheriff Stilinki that answered the door. He was still wearing his suit from earlier that day, except now his tie was missing and the top button of his shirt was undone. The dark circles under his eyes made him look weary and tired, but he smiled at the sight of the girl before him. It was a smile full of kindness and sympathy.

"Lydia. I'm guessing you're here for Stiles?"

Lydia was too emotional to speak, so she just nodded.

The sheriff looked indecisive. A sadness shone in his eyes for a moment, quickly replaced by the same caring expression he normally held. He stepped back for Lydia to enter.

"He's in his room." He said as Lydia stepped inside. He quickly led her through to the bottom of the staircase. "Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? I can bring it up if you like."

She shook her head in response, allowing herself a little smile of gratitude. This man didn't deserve her anger. She was saving it for someone else.

"I guess I'll just leave you to it then."

Lydia smiled again as the sheriff rubbed his neck uncomfortably. It was a nervous habit that Stiles had inherited. She didn't know why she knew that.

Lydia noticed how beneath the kindness that splayed itself across the sheriff's face, there was also a heavy nervousness and a sort of exhaustion that suggested he hadn't slept in a long time. Maybe that was only to be expected though considering what his son had been through. She found herself feeling sorry for him. But then she remembered that she was supposed to be angry.

The sight of something across the room caught Lydia's eye. It was a mirror, but it was cracked. The shatter pattern started in the centre and spread out into a spider web of lines, fracturing the picture of Stiles' lounge into a thousand tiny segments.

Stiles' father caught her eyeing it; then coughed into his hand nervously.

"Well I, uh, I've got work to do." He said. "Sheriff's duty n' all."

With that he began to turn in the direction of the kitchen.

"Mr Stilinski," said Lydia, causing him to halt and look back at her. The sadness behind his smile sent her anger crawling to a quiet place deep in the back of her mind. "Thank you."

The Sheriff nodded once, obviously not sure what to say. But there was no need to speak. They both knew all too well.

Soon Lydia was making her way upstairs. She quickly found herself in front of Stiles' door, hesitating with her hand raised to knock. As she stood there, she felt the anger quickly dissipate at the prospect of seeing him. It had been five days. Five entire days. Neither of them had spoken since the morning of the Nogitsune's death. It wasn't down to her though. He wasn't answering her texts. He hadn't been back to school, though that was wholly understandable. Of all days however, today should have been the day to break the silence. Today he should have come out of the dark. There were no excuses. Lydia had to purposely build the anger back up within herself for the motivation to knock. So that's what she did.

"Dad, I told you I'm fi-"

Stiles' words caught in his throat when he opened the door. His face was surprised, then immediately uneasy and slightly afraid.

Lydia didn't wait to be invited in. She walked past him; then turned to him, trying to stay mad. He was wearing the same clothes he slept in. His hair was a scruffy mess. He still looked exhausted. Though Lydia didn't notice any of that.

"Why weren't you there?" she asked, and to her frustration her voice came out more upset than angry. Stiles shut the door, but didn't respond. He just stared at her sadly, only aiding Lydia's vexation.

"I made a speech, Stiles." She said. "You know how hard that was? I made a speech and everyone heard it. Scott. Isaac. Even your  _dad_. But not you. You didn't hear it because you weren't there. So tell me why, Stiles?"

Stiles shuffled uncomfortably.

"Lydia, I, I couldn't-"

"Oh no, don't tell me you  _couldn't._ Because I can see you. I can see you right here, right now, alive. Even though you haven't exactly made it seem like that lately. But it was Allison's  _funeral_ , Stiles. There is no way in hell that you couldn't be there."

Stiles shoulders dropped. Lydia watched as he wandered to his bed and dropped down onto it; his head fell into his hands.

"You're right, Lydia. I'm sorry." He said with a sigh.

Lydia noticed a bandage wrapped tightly around his right hand as his elbows came to rest on his knees. She immediately felt her anger diffuse and disintegrate.

"Stiles, what did you do? Are you okay?"

She rushed over and plonked herself down next to him, reaching out for his injured hand to which he quickly pulled away. He didn't say anything; just bit the inside of his mouth anxiously. Suddenly, understanding dawned on her with a jolt of hurt.

"The mirror." She said quietly.

It was only then that she noticed the utterly bare walls. The absence of coloured string and pictures was unsettling and strange. She wondered what he'd been doing all this time. Probably stewing in his own guilt, a victim of his own mind. Stiles turned to look at her and his face tried to hide the emotion that his eyes emitted. His hands were suddenly moving too much, pressing against each other, shaking slightly.

"I guess  _okay_  isn't exactly the word." He said. "But it doesn't matter. I don't think anyone's really okay right now."

Lydia shook her head.

"Stiles, of course we're not okay," she exclaimed. "But at least we're not punching our own reflections and hibernating away where no one can find us."

Stiles face screwed up as his gaze returned to his fidgeting hands.

"You told me you loved me, Stiles." Lydia continued. "And I kissed you. I kissed you and then you just disappeared. How am I meant to react to that? If you're hurting, let me help you."

"I don't want any help." Stiles hissed, and his voice suddenly became monotone and bitter. "And you already knew that. So why are you even here?"

Lydia felt a tug of pain in her chest at his words. Stiles didn't understand. He really didn't get it, and it frustrated her an almost dizzying amount.

Lydia stood up rapidly and stomped towards the door feeling injured and riled. She'd only taken a few steps before she was spinning around, feeling the familiar welling of emotion in her chest, making itself visible through the glaze in her eyes; brewing tears that she refused to let fall.

"The truth is, I don't really care whether you want my help or not." Her voice was louder than it was previously. "My best friend died, Stiles. Did you not stop to think that maybe  _I_  needed help? You feel guilty, and I get that. You think Allison was your fault. Hell, I  _know_  that. But that doesn't mean you can just disappear off the face of the planet and leave me all alone. I can't do this without you, Stiles. I tried to give you space. I really did. But I just  _can't_  anymore. And I hate myself for it, but all I really want, all I want in the whole damn world, is to kiss you over and over again until it doesn't hurt anymore. And maybe that's selfish of me, but frankly I don't give a damn. And if you don't understand that by now then you're an even bigger idiot than I first thought."

Lydia was breathing hard. Her heart was racing. Her palms were sweating. Yet Stiles just sat there. He sat there like the moron he was, just staring at her. He'd stopped fidgeting. Now he was perfectly still. Lydia could have sworn she was about to explode.

"Well for God's sake, say something!"

She barely had time to register him standing before his lips were crashing into hers. Her stomach swooped. Her whole body shivered. But she was kissing back in an instant. It was some kind of hunger, some kind of need that was fulfilled just by being with him. His tongue ran along her bottom lip and she granted him entrance without hesitation. Her hands trailed into his hair, tugging ever so slightly. His own were upon her waist where his thumbs stroked and left sparks in their wake.

She didn't know who initiated the movement, but all of a sudden the back of her legs connected with the edge of Stiles' bed and she willingly fell backwards. Somehow their lips remained glued together as his hands gracefully steadied her onto the covers.

In that moment, she forgot about Allison. She forgot about the funeral. She forgot about the Nogitsune and the broken mirror and all of the guilt that the two of them shared between them. Instead, there was only him. This beautiful broken boy, whose arms were the only comforting things in the entire universe.

His hands were like fire. And it felt perfect. She'd grown used to them being sculptures of ice, but now his fingers traced patterns of pure heat on her lower back under her shirt. She continued to kiss him as they rolled over. Now she lay above him and her hair fell around his head in a splay of colour. Her hands trailed onto his stomach, feeling the perfect smoothness of his skin against her palms. But then she felt something different. Immediately she found herself addled by her own discovery.

"What's that?" she said, her nose brushing gently against his.

Then she was sitting up and Stiles chased after her, not wanting to break the kiss, but as she lifted the hem of his top slightly to expose the paleness of his stomach, he fell back down onto the pillow with a sigh.

Sure enough, contrasting with the ivory of his complexion was a thin purple line that stretched across the width of his torso. Lydia's lips remained parted as she traced it with her fingers, feeling the slight indent in his skin where the mark lived. She looked at him questioningly and his eyes flicked to the side, fragments of sadness returning to his face.

"I, uh, never properly had a chance to heal." He said. His voice was a low husky whisper full of melancholy. "I punched the mirror because I saw him looking back at me. I took all the crap off my wall so I wouldn't have anything to remind me of him. I don't want to be reminded of him, but I guess I don't get that privilege."

Lydia felt her forehead crease as she gazed down at the smooth scar. It actually looked sort of pretty. A line without imperfection. Then she looked back to his face and leaned down to kiss him again, only shortly. She caught his bottom lip and pulled slightly before they separated, keeping her face only inches from his as she pressed into his chest.

"When I was strangled by the Darach," she said, her voice hushed. "Do you remember the scars she left?"

Lydia could feel his warm breath on her face when he nodded.

"I didn't want to forget them," she continued, "because they meant I survived."

Lydia touched his lips again, barely.

"You survived, Stiles. You won. You beat him. Now you have a reminder of that. And that's really pretty cool if you ask me."

Stiles stared at her with those eyes, those stupid, stupid eyes, and she wondered how she was still breathing. She definitely wasn't when the fingers on one of his hands wove into her hair, the rest of his body rolling her onto her back once more. His weight bore gently down upon her and their lips were marrying tightly together again. She swore her heart had never beaten so fast.

They remained ravelled in each other for quite some time, neither of them needing anything more than the other's touch. It was only when they heard footsteps ascending the stairs that they broke apart in a rush. For a second, the old Stiles, the  _real_  Stiles blossomed in a scramble of flailing limbs as he pushed himself of off Lydia and onto his feet. Lydia sat up, slid to the edge of the bed and ran her hands through her hair quickly in an attempt to tame the dishevelled mess it had become.

There was a nock. Stiles gave a cringingly unnatural "come in" to which Mr Stilinski pushed the door open with his foot. He held a steaming mug of hot chocolate in either hand.

"Uh, hey dad, what's up?"

Lydia nearly face palmed at Stiles' awkwardness. Sheriff's Stilinski's eyes travelled from Stiles to Lydia, then back to Stiles, his expression unchanging.

"I know you said you didn't want anything," he addressed Lydia. "But I thought one mug couldn't hurt."

Stiles hand shot to his neck.

"Uh, thanks." He said rather pathetically.

The Sheriff stood uncomfortably in the doorway, then raised his eyebrows expectantly. Stiles mouth shot open.

"Oh, ohh, sorry, I've got it."

He quickly rushed over and took the two mugs from his father, careful not to spill any of the scolding liquid.

For a moment, the sheriff looked rather incredulous. But then his eyes drifted so he wasn't really looking at either of them.

"You two have fun then." He said. Stiles' shoulders went up and down in a particularly Stiles-like manner.

"Thanks, dad." He said, before closing the door and turning back around to release a huge breath. He quickly put the mugs down on his desk.

It was then that a smile spread across Lydia's lips at the sight of Stiles' face. It was really quite a spectacle, so much so she had to hold in a burst of laughter. Stiles looked at her and frowned.

"What?" he asked. "What is it?"

Lydia sucked in a snicker.

"Lipstick." She said simply.

Stiles immediately wiped the back of his uninjured hand across his mouth, pulling it away to reveal a large smear of vibrant red. Lydia could see the moment it registered on his face. The way it suddenly deadpanned was pretty wonderful.

"You've got to be kidding me." Stiles exclaimed, and then Lydia couldn't hold in her laughter any longer.

"Shut up." Said Stiles.

"So much for subtlety." Lydia chuckled, even though she knew her own lipstick was equally smudged.

"I said shut up." But then a smile was catching the corner of Stiles' lips. An actual smile. And it warmed Lydia's heart.

But creeping up on her was guilt, hot and heavy in the pit of her stomach. It reprimanded her for smiling; for laughing. Allison's funeral was today. How could she possibly be smiling right now? How could she possibly have lipstick smeared across her face? What had she done? How could she be so insensitive; so disrespectful?

She watched the expression on Stiles' face change, probably parallel to hers. She slumped in her own skin, her laughter quickly dying away.

Stiles watched her, watched her face drop, her eyes turn grey. Then he was walking towards her. He crouched down in front of her and took her hands in his own. His gaze made her feel the most undeserving she'd ever felt.

"She would want you to be happy, Lydia. You shouldn't feel ashamed of living." He said quietly.

Lydia stared back, and a tear fell down her cheek, completely beyond her control.

"You really are a hypocrite, you know?" she said, but it wasn't anything accusatory. Stiles looked down at the carpet for a second, then back up to her face.

"I know." He said, and Lydia could see he knew she was right.

"If you follow your own advice and come back to school, leave your house, stop punching mirrors, I promise that I'll follow it too." Lydia bargained.

Stiles smiled at her sadly.

"Agreed."

Lydia smiled back. She let herself laugh slightly, though it wasn't exactly a happy sound.

"You look absolutely ridiculous." She said, bringing up her hand and using her thumb to wipe the lipstick from his lips.

"You look pretty ridiculous too." He said from under her touch. "I kinda like it though."

Lydia's tiny smile extended a little further.

"Can I stay here tonight?" she asked before she even realised what she was saying. Stiles eyes widened, but then returned back to his previous expression, wholly understanding and kind.

"Yeah, of course." He said. "I'll take the sofa."

Lydia tilted her head and gave him a look that he instantly understood.

"Or not."

Lydia fell asleep in Stiles' arms that night, wearing one of his t-shirts. Her head rested against his chest as his steady heartbeat lulled her into an abyss of peace. In a way, she was relieved to have her distraction back within her grasp. But he'd become so much more than that. This was Stiles, and right now she felt like she belonged to him. Maybe tomorrow she would feel differently. Maybe she would need more time. Maybe  _he_  would. But that didn't matter. None of it did. Because through all the agony and grief and terror that was their reality, Stiles was the one constant that injected some kind of tranquillity into her life. And it was this tranquillity that finally rocked her into a deep sleep. A sleep where she dreamt of Allison and a boy with a buzz cut that she used to ignore.

And both of them were oh so happy.

* * *

Stiles felt Lydia's sleeping body against his own and basked in the warmth of it. Part of him was in disbelief. But another part of him was simply happy to see her at peace. He brushed a lock of hair that had fallen across her face aside and watched the rise and fall of her chest. He felt guilty that he hadn't been there for her previously. However seeing anyone at all had seemed like an impossible feat, let alone going to a funeral.

The truth was, he still felt afraid of himself. So so afraid. And even though the Nogitsune had gone, he still felt like he was in a constant battle to control his own mind; to save it from the darkness of his own thoughts. For some reason he hadn't realised that Lydia could help; that she could take some of that fear away. Being with her provided some sort of balance; some sort of control.

Scott had been the only person allowed into his life over the past few days, because Scott was his family. And Stiles knew that Lydia would understand that. As he looked down at her sleeping figure, every second reminded him of how beautiful she was. But beauty was a fickle thing. Lydia was more than that. She was his tether, his anchor, and he would go wherever she guided him, into the depths of whatever hell that surrounded them.

He didn't sleep that night. But having her beside him was more than enough. He wasn't totally happy. He wasn't totally  _okay_. But for the first time, it crossed his mind that one day he would be.

One day, everything would be alright.


	20. Chapter 20

those who are wanting a sequel, go check it out on my account. S'called One Day, Everything Will Be Okay. I hope it suffices!


End file.
